Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Kiss Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Beat the yolks of the eggs with ½ cup sugar until light.
Add 1½ tablespoons cornstarch and stir in 1 pint of boiling milk.
Cook on the stove until thick, then pour into a pudding dish.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites with ½ cup sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the egg whites over the top of the pudding and brown under a broiler.
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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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard and whites form a meringue that browns on top.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and the meringue, and helps the whites hold stiff peaks.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk into a set custard as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard that cornstarch thickens.
The step that matters
Cook the custard until thick. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a simmer and stays there briefly. Stopping early leaves a thin pudding that will not hold its shape under the meringue.
“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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