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Dessert

Arrow-root Pudding

A sweet pudding made with arrowroot, milk, sugar, butter, and crystallized peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Arrow-root Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until it is scalding.

  2. Mix the arrow-root with a little cold milk to form a paste, then stir it into the hot milk.

  3. Stir continuously for 10 minutes, then add the sugar and butter.

  4. Continue stirring for another 5 minutes, then pour the mixture into a dish.

Set and serve

  1. Once nearly cold, beat in the chopped peaches.

  2. Pour the mixture into a wet mold and refrigerate until cold and stiff.

  3. To serve, turn out onto a dish and enjoy 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.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Arrow-root
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, firm pudding that holds its shape when cold.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens into the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the pudding.
Crystallized peaches
Add sweet fruit flavor and pieces throughout the set pudding.

The step that matters

Stirring the arrow-root into the hot milk. Starch thickens only when hot liquid is stirred steadily, so keeping the mixture moving prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan while it thickens.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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