Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Minute Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Heat the milk in a saucepan until it boils.
Add the salt and stir in the sifted flour until thickened.
Boil for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and flavor with lemon or vanilla.
Set and serve
Dip a bowl in cold water, then pour the pudding in when slightly cool.
Serve with powdered sugar and rich cream.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a pudding.
The step that matters
Stirring while the pudding boils. Flour settles and scorches on the bottom of a pan if it is not stirred constantly, and lumps form if it is added without stirring. Constant stirring keeps the starch evenly dispersed as it thickens.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, sugar, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, sugar, cream. 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.
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