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Preserve

Cornstarch Pudding

A milk pudding thickened with cornstarch, sweetened, flavored with vanilla, and studded with fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cornstarch Pudding

Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cornstarch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Stir in the cornstarch mixed with a little cold water and cook for five minutes.

  3. Place the upper part of the double boiler on the fire and let the cornstarch boil.

  4. Return the boiler to its place, add the sugar, beaten egg, and salt, and cook for two minutes, stirring continually.

  5. Flavor with vanilla, add the fruit, and pour into a mold.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill and serve with sugar and cream.

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. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  5. Peach + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks and gelatinizes.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind and set the pudding as it is cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the flavor of the fruit.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch. Cornstarch must reach a boil and be stirred to thicken fully; undercooked starch leaves a raw, chalky taste and a thin texture. Stirring prevents lumps and scorching while the egg is added.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Peachthe original
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

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