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Dessert

Arrowroot Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with arrowroot, milk, lemon rind, sugar, eggs, butter, and puff pastry, baked with preserved fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Arrowroot Pudding

Why it works: Arrowroot and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 553 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Arrowroot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix 2 tablespoons of arrowroot with ½ cup of milk.

  2. Combine 1½ cups of milk, grated rind of ½ lemon, and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a saucepan.

  3. Boil the mixture.

  4. Pour the boiling milk mixture over the arrowroot. Stir well.

  5. When the mixture is cool, add 3 well-beaten eggs and a walnut-sized piece of butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the edges of a well-buttered pie dish with puff pastry.

  2. Spread a layer of preserved fruit at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Pour the arrowroot mixture into the dish.

  4. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 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. Arrowroot + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together26 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard-like filling as it is heated.
Eggs
Add richness and help the pudding set as they cook in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens and the eggs enrich.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Pour the boiling milk over the arrowroot and stir well. Arrowroot thickens when it is heated in liquid and its starch swells. Stirring well while the mixture is hot keeps it smooth and prevents lumps, so the filling sets evenly.

Swap the arrowroot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, sugar, egg, walnut, 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.

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