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Dessert

Minute Pudding

A quick pudding made from flour, milk, eggs, butter, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Minute Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, rub the flour smooth with 9 tablespoons of milk.

  2. Beat the eggs until stiff and add to the flour mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. In a saucepan, boil 1½ tablespoons of butter with 1½ cups of milk.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and the flour-egg mixture to the saucepan.

  3. Boil together until thick.

  4. Serve immediately with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells and sets when boiled.
Eggs
Add structure and body, helping the pudding set as it thickens.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the milk base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and eggs thicken.

The step that matters

Boil together until thick. Flour starch needs to reach a full boil to thicken and lose its raw taste. Eggs can scramble if overheated, so stir constantly and keep the heat controlled.

“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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