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Dessert

Bath Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with milk, flour, eggs, butter, almonds, lemon, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bath Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Thicken the milk with flour in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Once thickened, let it cool.

  3. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the cooled milk mixture.

Finish and bake

  1. Stir in the butter, blanched almonds, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, and sugar.

  2. Pour the mixture into cups and bake until set.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 when baked, giving it structure and a tender body.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth base before the eggs are added.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that gives the pudding its soft, creamy texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into cups and bake until set. Eggs set through gentle heat; overbaking makes the custard curdle, turn grainy and weep liquid, so it should be removed once just firm.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, butter, almond, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, butter, almond, sugar. 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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