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 ↓
Peach Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Open the can of peaches and pour them into a buttered pudding dish.
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then add the milk and salt.
Make a well in the flour and slowly pour in the milk mixture.
Beat the batter until smooth, then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter over the peaches in the dish.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden and set.
Serve immediately with butter and sugar if no sauce is made.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Peach + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
- All-purpose flour
- Starch and gluten give the batter body so it sets into a pudding rather than pouring.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and eggs and contributes to a tender custard-like texture.
- Whole peaches
- Supply fruit flavour and moisture that soaks into the pudding as it bakes.
- Melted butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender crumb.
The step that matters
Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whites by stirring too hard loses the air that lifts the pudding, leaving it dense instead of light.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, milk, flour, egg, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, milk, flour, egg, 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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