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 ↓
Corn Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Cut the corn kernels off the cobs and press out the pulp.
In a bowl, combine the corn pulp, milk, flour, eggs, sugar, salt, and melted butter.
Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.
Bake and serve
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm.
Serve hot with lemon sauce.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Sweet corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Set when heated, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
- Milk
- Supplies moisture and creates a custard-like texture when baked.
- Flour
- Thickens the mixture so it holds together rather than running out.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, softening the texture and adding flavour.
The step that matters
Bake until firm. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the custard runny, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery, so the pudding should be checked for firmness rather than left on a fixed timer.
“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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