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Dessert

Walnut Pudding

A baked pudding made with egg yolks, powdered sugar, farina, bread crumbs, walnuts, egg whites, and sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Walnut Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of 6 eggs with 2 cups of powdered sugar for 15 minutes.

  2. Add ¾ cup of farina, ¼ cup of bread crumbs, and 1 cup of chopped walnuts.

  3. Beat the whites of 6 eggs until stiff and fold them into the mixture.

Bake and assemble

  1. Bake in two layers for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Whip 1 pint of sweet cream, sweeten to taste, and spread between the layers and on top.

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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + walnuttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together714 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Walnut + creamtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter with fat and emulsifiers, giving a rich, tender crumb.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air so the pudding rises and stays light.
Farina
Adds body and starch that help the batter set into a sliceable structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add light structure, helping the layers hold together.
Chopped walnuts
Add fat, texture and a toasty, nutty flavor.
Sweet cream
Whipped, it adds moisture and richness to the filling and topping.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped whites. Whites must be beaten until stiff and folded gently. Deflating the foam by overmixing or stirring vigorously removes the air that makes the layers rise and stay light.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, bread, cream):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, bread, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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