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Dessert

Arrowroot Pudding

A steamed pudding made with arrowroot, milk, eggs, wine, orange flower water, and sugar, served with a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Arrowroot Pudding

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Arrowroot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine arrowroot and milk over low heat, stirring until it boils.

  2. Add the egg yolks, white wine, and orange-flower water, mixing well.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  4. Sweeten to taste with loaf sugar.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a mold and arrange dried cherries around it.

  2. Pour the pudding mixture into the mold.

  3. Place the mold in a steamer or a pan of water and steam for 30 minutes, covering the lid with a weight to ensure it rises.

Serve

  1. Serve with arrowroot and wine sauce.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Arrowroot + lemontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth base that holds the pudding together.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens and the eggs set into.
Egg yolks
Enrich the pudding and help it set as it cooks, giving a tender texture.
Egg whites
Whipped air raises the mixture and keeps the pudding light as it steams.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that makes the pudding rise and stay light. Stirring or mixing them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, egg, white wine, orange, sugar, butter):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, egg, white wine, orange, 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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