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Dessert

Virginia Pudding

A custard pudding made with eggs, milk, cream or butter, flour, sugar, and flavored with wine or lemon, topped with a frothy egg‑white sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Virginia Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine 5 eggs, milk, cream (or butter), flour, and salt, and mix well.

  3. Pour into a baking dish.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, beat the reserved egg whites until frothy.

  2. Gradually add sugar and continue beating until well combined.

  3. Flavor the sauce with wine or lemon.

  4. Pour the sauce over the pudding just before serving.

  5. Serve cold.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 structure and add richness as the pudding bakes.
Flour
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape rather than running loose.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and gives it a soft, tender body.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg white sauce and helps it hold a stable foam.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the sauce its light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs thicken as they heat, so overbaking can make the custard curdled, rubbery, or watery. Check that the centre has firmed while still staying soft.

“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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