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Dessert

Peach Pudding

A custard made from milk, corn starch, butter, sugar, eggs, and peaches, baked in a pudding dish.

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 ↓

Peach Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix corn starch with a little cold milk to dissolve.

  3. Stir the corn starch mixture into the boiling milk.

  4. Add the butter and sugar, and stir until combined.

  5. Beat the eggs.

  6. Mix the beaten eggs into the pudding mixture.

Assemble the dish

  1. In a pudding dish, layer the halved peaches.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the peaches.

  3. Pour the pudding batter over the peaches.

  4. Crack the peach pits, remove the peach meats, and place them on top.

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. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peachtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together94 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs enrich.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth pudding when it is dissolved first and then boiled.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the pudding body and a tender, custardy texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding and sprinkled peaches.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Peaches
Add fruity aroma and natural sweetness, and moisture as they sit under the pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the corn starch into the boiling milk. Corn starch must be dispersed in cold liquid first, or it clumps. It thickens only once the hot milk reaches a boil and the starch granules swell and gelatinize, so stir steadily while adding it.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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