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
Combine the milk or cream, eggs, flour, salt, and flavoring in a bowl.
Cook the pudding
Pour the mixture into a well-floured cloth.
Boil the wrapped mixture for 1.5 hours.
Alternatively, pour the batter into greased cups and bake for 1 hour.
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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Milk + eggtop 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
- Set the batter and give the pudding its structure as they cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
- Milk or cream
- Supplies the liquid that makes the batter pourable and keeps the pudding moist.
The step that matters
Wrapping the mixture in a well-floured cloth. The floured cloth forms a dry skin on the outside so the pudding holds its shape and does not stick or go soggy while it boils.
“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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