Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Boiled Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Boil the milk and scald the flour to remove lumps.
Mix in one yolk at a time until all yolks are added.
Cream the butter and sugar together, then stir into the scalded flour.
Assemble and boil
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold in just before pouring into the mold.
Boil for one hour or more, keeping it in the water until served.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten to stiff peaks, lighten the pudding as it sets.
- Butter
- Creaming with sugar adds fat that gives the pudding a rich, tender texture.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the milk mixture and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter, it sweetens the pudding and helps make the batter smooth.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that lifts the batter. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard would deflate it and leave a dense pudding.
“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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