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Dessert

Custard Pudding

A steamed custard made with cream, milk, flour, eggs, bitter almonds, brandy, nutmeg, sugar, and butter, served with a butter‑sugar‑juice glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Custard Pudding

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Custard Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Take 5 tablespoons of cream or milk and mix with 2 tablespoons of flour.

  2. Boil the remaining milk with broken bitter almonds for flavor.

  3. Strain the boiled milk.

  4. Stir it into the cold milk and flour mixture.

  5. Let it cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites together.

  2. Add the eggs to the milk mixture.

  3. Stir in the brandy or wine, nutmeg, and sugar.

  4. Butter a large bowl or mold.

  5. Pour in the mixture.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie a cloth tightly over the bowl.

  2. Place it in a pot of boiling water.

  3. Boil for 2 hours.

  4. Replenish the pot with hot water as needed.

  5. Let the pudding cool before turning it out.

  6. Serve with a mixture of butter and sugar stirred together with lemon or orange juice.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg proteins set as the custard cooks, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable body.
Cream or rich milk
Supplies fat and liquid, giving the pudding a rich, smooth, moist texture.
Fine flour
Thickens the milk so the custard holds its shape rather than running.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.
Brandy or white wine
Adds aroma and a background flavor that lifts the dairy and eggs.

The step that matters

Keep the pudding at a steady boil and top up the water. Eggs set gently as they heat. If the water level drops or the pot boils unevenly, the pudding can cook unevenly and turn rough or porous.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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