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Dessert

Farina Pudding

A milk and farina pudding sweetened with sugar and eggs, flavored with vanilla and a pinch of salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Farina Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the farina

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the farina and boil for 30 minutes.

Combine and bake

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together, then add them when the farina is cool.

  2. Stir in an extra pint of milk.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Farina
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set the custard as it bakes and add richness.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the farina thickens.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only when the farina is cool. Eggs scramble when they meet very hot liquid, leaving the pudding grainy. Letting the farina cool slightly before adding the beaten eggs and sugar lets them blend smoothly and set evenly in the oven.

“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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