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Dessert

Hiss Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with eggs, milk, sugar, flour, butter, and lemon juice, baked until browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hiss Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the egg yolks, flour, sugar, and melted butter.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture and stir until it thickens slightly.

  4. Remove from heat and mix in the lemon juice.

Bake and serve

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until frothy.

  2. Combine the thickened mixture with the beaten egg whites and stir gently.

  3. Pour into a baking dish and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until the top is browned.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Egg yolks thicken the custard and egg whites, beaten, lighten the pudding and help it rise.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and sets as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Flour
Thickens the custard and gives the pudding structure as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Combine the thickened mixture with the beaten egg whites and stir gently. Beaten egg whites hold air that makes the pudding light. Stirring gently keeps that air from deflating, so the pudding rises and stays fluffy in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, flour, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, flour, butter. 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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