Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓
Corn Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Cut the corn lengthwise and scrape it from the cobs.
In a bowl, combine the scraped corn, cream or milk, eggs, sugar, and salt.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 3 hours.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together7,168 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Corn + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
- Sweet corn
- Forms the bulk of the pudding and provides its sweet, starchy body.
- Cream or milk
- Adds moisture and richness so the pudding stays tender rather than dry.
- Eggs
- Set during slow baking to bind the corn and cream into a custard-like pudding.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness that complements the corn's natural sugars.
The step that matters
Bake in a slow oven. Eggs set through gentle heat; high heat or overbaking can curdle and toughen the custard, leaving it grainy and watery instead of smooth.
“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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