Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 6,955 recipes mention both. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓
Obeam Fib
Ingredients
Directions
Make the filling
Bring two cups of milk to a boil.
Turn in the mixture of two thirds of a cup of sugar, yolks of two eggs, two tablespoonfuls of corn starch and a pinch of salt. Flavor.
Assemble and top
Bake the crust first.
Put the cream in the crust.
Make a frosting of the whites of the eggs and two tablespoonfuls of sugar.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 77,875 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard filling.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the custard as it heats with the milk.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and set the custard; whites make the frosting.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and sweetens the egg white frosting.
The step that matters
Turn in the sugar, yolks, corn starch and salt mixture. Adding the egg and starch mixture to hot milk must be done gradually and with steady stirring, or the yolks can scramble and the starch can clump before the custard thickens smoothly.
“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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