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Dessert

Spanish Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with milk, gelatin, eggs, sugar, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Spanish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in a small amount of milk while heating.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and add 1 cup of sugar.

  3. Add the yolk mixture to the boiling milk, stirring constantly.

  4. In another bowl, beat the egg whites and add the remaining cup of sugar.

  5. Stir the beaten egg whites into the milk mixture, continuing to stir.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into molds immediately and let it stand overnight.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Yolks thicken the milk and whites, beaten separately, lighten the pudding's texture.
Gelatine
Sets the liquid mixture so the pudding holds its shape in molds.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs and gelatine set into a creamy pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg whites into the milk mixture. Egg whites folded into hot liquid can deflate or cook unevenly if added carelessly. Stirring continuously keeps the mixture smooth and evenly distributes the foam so the pudding sets light and uniform.

“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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