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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A sweet custard pudding made with milk, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, and finished with a whipped egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Delmonico 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 custard

  1. Heat the sweet milk in a saucepan until just before boiling.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar in a bowl until thick.

  3. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk until smooth.

  4. Pour the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk. Stir the mixture.

  5. Cook until thickened.

  6. Pour the custard into a buttered dish.

  7. Let the custard cool.

Ice and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites for the icing.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar to the egg whites until the icing is spreadable.

  3. Spread the icing over the cooled custard.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with rich cream and a sprinkle of nutmeg.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness and color to its base.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth custard as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Forms the body of the custard that thickens and sets when cooked.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a light icing that browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and, dissolved into whipped whites, gives the icing its structure.

The step that matters

Pour the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk and cook until thickened. Cornstarch must be fully mixed in smooth and cooked while stirring so its starch granules swell and gelatinize; undercooking leaves a thin, starchy custard that will not set properly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, corn, butter, 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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