Skip to main content
Dessert

Corn Starch Pudding

A sweet pudding made with corn starch, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, vanilla, salt, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hatfield (Mass.). Congregational Church · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and nutmeg work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Corn Starch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Take 1 quart milk, set aside enough to wet 3 tablespoons corn starch, 2 eggs well beaten, 1/4 cup sugar.

  2. Boil the milk, then add the beaten eggs, sugar, corn starch, a little salt, and flavor with vanilla. Serve with hard sauce.

Make the hard sauce

  1. Beat butter into a cream, add sugar, season with nutmeg.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

594Calories
19 gProtein
7 gFat
109 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Hatfield (Mass.). Congregational Church. 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. See the original page.

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. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 set, smooth custard as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Boil the milk, then add the beaten eggs and corn starch. Corn starch needs to reach a boil to thicken fully, and eggs can scramble if added to very hot milk without stirring. Keep stirring while adding them so the pudding stays smooth and thick.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, sugar, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More corn starch pudding recipes

Chocolate 3 See all 77 →

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes