Skip to main content
Dessert

Corn Starch Meringue

A milk pudding thickened with corn starch, topped with meringue and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Corn and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn Starch Meringue

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in 3 tablespoons of water and stir it into the boiling milk.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, sugar, and salt to the mixture.

  4. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes until thickened.

  5. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add ½ cup sugar to make the meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and brown it in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

Serve

  1. Dot with jelly before serving.

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. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable custard as it cooks and swells.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the custard, while whipped whites form the light meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which the starch thickens.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and meringue and helps the whites hold their structure.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully once the mixture reaches a boil and cooks a few minutes. Stopping early leaves the pudding thin and can leave a raw starchy taste.

“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.

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes