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Dessert

Rich Pudding

A rich custard-like pudding baked in puff pastry and topped with meringue.

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 ↓

Rich Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Stir the flour into the milk.

  2. Beat the butter, egg yolks, and sugar together until smooth.

  3. Combine the flour mixture with the butter mixture and cook in a pan until thick, stirring to prevent scorching.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a deep pan with puff pastry and spread the preserves in the bottom.

  2. Pour the thick mixture into the pan and bake until set.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and gradually add the sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and return to the oven to brown slightly.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Milk + strawberrytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard sets firm rather than runny.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that gives a light, browned topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and, whipped with egg whites, stabilises the meringue.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into the custard.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard until thick. Flour starch thickens only when the mixture reaches a simmer, and egg yolks can scorch or curdle if overheated. Stirring constantly keeps the custard smooth and evenly thick before it goes into the pan.

Swap the strawberry

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

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

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