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Dessert

Vanilla Pudding

A custard-like dessert made from stale bread, cream, butter, almonds, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Vanilla Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bread in the milk.

  2. Cream the butter and add the egg yolks, grated almonds, sugar, and vanilla.

Mix

  1. Beat all the ingredients together for 15 minutes, stirring in the same direction.

  2. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil for 1½ to 2 hours.

  2. Serve with fruit juice 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the pudding, while whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Stale bread
Soaked bread absorbs the milk and gives the pudding its body.
Milk or cream
Liquid that moistens the bread and makes the mixture smooth and rich.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, velvety texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Grated almonds
Add nutty flavour and a fine, slightly dense texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whipped egg whites hold air bubbles that give the pudding its lightness. Stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a dense result, so fold slowly with a spatula from the bottom up.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pecansfits less well
  4. Cocoafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, cream, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla. 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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