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Dessert

Nutmeg Pudding

A baked pudding made with nutmeg, butter, sugar, wine, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Nutmeg 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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pound the nutmegs finely.

  2. Melt the butter in a large bowl.

  3. Stir in the sugar, a little wine, the beaten egg yolks, and the nutmeg.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture onto a puff pastry base.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Nutmegs
Provides the warm, spiced aroma that defines the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the butter and yolks.
Egg yolks
Set during baking to give the filling its body and custard-like structure.
Puff pastry
Forms the base that holds the filling and bakes into flaky layers.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it curdle and weep. Watch for a filling that is just firm at the centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, wine, egg. 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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