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Dessert

Winter Biles of Fare

A baked coconut milk pudding made with eggs, sugar, vanilla, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Winter Biles of Fare

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a kettle, adding a tiny bit of baking soda.

  2. Stir in the sugar and pour the sweetened milk over the beaten eggs.

  3. Leave the mixture over the fire until just lukewarm.

  4. Season with vanilla or bitter almond extract and stir in the grated coconut.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  3. Serve cold with light cakes.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard and give the pudding its body as they cook.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a soft custard.
Grated coconut
Adds texture and a sweet, tropical flavour throughout the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Leave the mixture over the fire until just lukewarm. Eggs thicken when gently heated but scramble if they get too hot. Stopping at lukewarm keeps the custard smooth before it goes into the oven to set.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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