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Dessert

Minute Pudding

A quick milk and flour pudding cooked in a saucepan and served with sweetened milk or cream and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Minute Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs well in a bowl.

  2. Add the flour and enough milk to make a smooth mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Butter a saucepan and add the remaining milk with salt; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the flour and egg mixture lightly; let it cook until thickened.

  3. Serve immediately with sweetened rich milk or cream flavored with nutmeg.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Eggs
Set and thicken the pudding as they cook, giving it body.
Flour
Thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its smooth body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour and eggs thicken into pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and egg mixture lightly; let it cook until thickened.. Adding the batter to boiling milk too vigorously or without stirring can cause lumps. Gentle stirring keeps the mixture smooth while the starch gelatinises and the egg proteins set, thickening the pudding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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