Name: Corn Pudding
Ingredients: 1 dozen ears of corn or 1 can corn; 1 teaspoon sugar; 1 teaspoon flour; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 egg, beaten; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 piece of butter, size of a walnut

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 ↓

Corn 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.

Prepare

Remove the kernels from the corn if using fresh corn.

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix the corn, sugar, flour, salt, beaten egg, sweet milk, and butter.
Pour the mixture into a buttered 2-quart baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

Serve

Serve immediately.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Corn + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together349 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,955 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 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

Corn: Forms the bulk of the pudding and adds sweetness and body.
Egg: Sets the custard as it bakes, giving the pudding structure.
Sweet milk: Provides liquid that bakes into a soft, custard-like texture.
Flour: Thickens the mixture slightly so it holds together when baked.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

Swap the walnut

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Milletfits about as well
Walnutthe original

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