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Dessert

Corn-Starch Pudding

A sweet pudding made from corn starch, milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Corn-Starch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, combine corn starch, sugar, and salt.

  2. Gradually add milk while stirring to avoid lumps.

  3. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter.

  2. Pour into a serving dish and let cool before serving.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set pudding as it heats and gelatinizes.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a creamy custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's body and flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Adding the milk gradually while stirring. Starch clumps when it meets hot or unevenly mixed liquid. Adding milk slowly while stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the pudding cooks smooth rather than lumpy.

“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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