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 ↓
Delightful Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine boiled milk, mashed potatoes, flour, and butter.
Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
Serve warm with sugar and cream or milk.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Boiled milk
- Forms the liquid base that the other ingredients are suspended and set in.
- Mashed potatoes
- Adds body and a soft, creamy texture to the pudding.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the mixture and gives it structure as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the pudding and set it as it bakes, giving a custard-like firmness.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, tender texture.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. If the mixture is still hot, the beaten eggs can scramble or cook unevenly instead of blending smoothly. Cooling first lets the eggs mix in evenly so the pudding sets into a uniform texture.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, egg, sugar, cream):
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatothe original
- Sweet potatofits about as well
- Arrowrootfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, egg, sugar, cream. 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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