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 ↓
Flour Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat your water bath for boiling.
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and whites with part of the milk.
Stir in the flour until smooth.
Add the remaining milk, nutmeg, essence of ratafia, and sugar; mix well.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a buttered basin.
Boil for one hour in the water bath.
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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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Egg yolks and whites
- Set the pudding into a tender custard as they cook, and add richness and body.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk and eggs so the pudding holds its shape when cooked.
- New milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour cook into a soft custard.
The step that matters
Boil for one hour in the water bath. Eggs and flour need steady, gentle heat to set fully without curdling or leaving the centre raw. Keep the water boiling throughout the hour so the pudding cooks evenly.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, sugar, 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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