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 ↓
Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs thoroughly.
Add the milk and salt, if desired.
Sift the flour and gradually add it to the milk and eggs while beating lightly.
Pour the mixture through a fine wire strainer into a small, tightly covered pail.
Steam and serve
Place the pail in a kettle of boiling water and do not move it during cooking.
Steam for exactly 1 hour.
Carefully slip the pudding out of the pail onto a hot dish and serve with cream 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provide structure and richness as they set during steaming.
- Flour
- Forms the body of the batter and sets the pudding's final texture.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter cook into a tender, soft pudding.
The step that matters
Keep the pail still during steaming. Moving the covered pail can disturb the setting batter, causing a dense or uneven pudding. Steady, gentle heat lets the eggs and flour set evenly.
“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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