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Dessert

Delmonico Pudding

A custard pudding made with sweet milk, egg yolks, sugar, corn starch, topped with whipped egg white icing, served with cream and nutmeg sauce.

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. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar until thick.

  3. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk until smooth, then pour in the boiling milk mixture.

  4. Stir and cook until thickened, then pour into a buttered dish and let cool.

Top and bake

  1. For the icing, beat the egg whites and gradually add powdered sugar until desired consistency.

  2. Once the custard is cool, spread the icing on top and bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with rich cream and nutmeg sauce.

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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 a yellow colour as they set.
Corn starch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the starch thickens.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar to form a meringue-style icing that browns in the oven.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and the icing, and helps the icing hold its body.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard on the stove. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a simmer and is stirred constantly. Stopping early leaves a thin custard, while overcooking can cause scorching on the base of the pan.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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