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Dessert

Flake Barley for Puddings

A sweet pudding made from soaked flake barley, water, sugar, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and milk work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Flake Barley for Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the barley

  1. Soak 1 cup of Flake Barley in water for several hours or overnight.

  2. Drain and rinse the barley.

Cook the pudding

  1. In a pot, combine the soaked barley with 4 cups of water and bring to a boil.

  2. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes until tender.

  3. Stir in ½ cup of sugar, 2 cups of milk, and a pinch of salt.

  4. Cook for an additional 10 minutes, stirring frequently.

  5. Serve warm or chilled as desired.

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. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Flake barley
Forms the bulk of the pudding and thickens as its starch softens and releases during simmering.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness, giving the pudding a soft, smooth body.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and balances the mild, grainy flavour of the barley.

The step that matters

Stirring while the milk cooks in. Once milk and sugar are added, the mixture can scorch on the bottom of the pot and thicken unevenly. Frequent stirring spreads heat and keeps the starch dispersed, so the pudding stays smooth.

“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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