Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Flour Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Boil the milk.
Stir in the flour while the milk is scalding and let it cool.
Once cooled, beat the eggs well and mix them in with salt.
Cook
Boil hard for one hour.
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.
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the pudding, providing moisture and a soft, custardy body.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding structure once cooked.
- Eggs
- Set when boiled, binding the mixture and giving it a firmer, tender texture.
The step that matters
Stir in the flour while the milk is scalding. Adding flour to hot milk and stirring well helps the starch disperse evenly without lumps. Letting the mixture cool before adding the eggs keeps them from scrambling in the hot liquid.
“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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