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Dessert

Quick Pudding

A simple baked pudding made from eggs, milk, and flour, optionally flavored with preserve or jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Quick 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and flour until smooth.

Fill and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into patty tins or cups.

  2. Add a little preserve or jam to the bottom of each cup if desired.

  3. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden and set.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with hot 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Set the batter into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body as it bakes.
Milk
Provides the liquid that makes the batter smooth and keeps the pudding tender.
Preserve or jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour to the base of each pudding.

The step that matters

Bake until golden and set. Eggs set as they heat, so pulling the puddings too early leaves them runny in the centre. Leaving them too long dries the custard and makes it rubbery. Look for a golden top and a centre that no longer wobbles.

“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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