Skip to main content
Dessert

Baked Arrowroot Pudding

A baked pudding made from milk, butter, rose water, egg yolks, sugar, cinnamon, and arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 166 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Baked Arrowroot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk and cinnamon together.

  2. Remove the saucepan from the heat and quickly stir in the arrowroot, previously rubbed smooth in a little water or cold milk.

  3. Remove the stick of cinnamon before mixing in the butter.

  4. Pour the mixture into a baking dish while warm and stir in the butter.

Bake

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until very light, then add to the other ingredients.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Cinnamon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Rose + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together892 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk as it cools, giving the pudding a smooth, set texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set, adding richness and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens and the eggs set.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, smoother mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens the set custard.

The step that matters

Stirring in the arrowroot off the heat. Arrowroot thickens quickly when heated, so adding it off the heat and mixing it in smooth first prevents lumps and a gluey texture.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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

More arrowroot pudding recipes

Lemon 3 See all 190 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes