Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Rich Jam-custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Butter a deep dish and line it with puff pastry.
Assemble
Layer jam, then custard, repeating until the dish is nearly full, finishing with custard on top.
Slice minced peel into diamonds and arrange on top.
Bake and serve
Bake for 20 minutes.
Beat the egg whites into a stiff froth, adding powdered sugar to taste.
Pile the frothy egg whites on the pudding as high as possible and serve.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Puff pastry
- Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the jam and custard layers.
- Jam
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the layers.
- Custard
- Provides a soft, creamy filling that sets as the pudding bakes.
- Egg whites
- Beaten into a stiff froth, they form a light topping that browns in the oven.
The step that matters
Piling the egg white froth. Egg whites beaten to a stiff froth hold their air only briefly, so they should be piled on and served promptly before they deflate and weep.
“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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