Name: Batter Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 3 tablespoons fine flour; 2 ounces butter; 3 egg yolks; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') to taste; Optional: ginger, nutmeg, and lemon peel; Plain butter for serving; Sweet sauce for serving

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a saucepan, whisk 3 tablespoons of fine flour into 1 pint of milk until smooth.
Simmer the mixture until it thickens, then stir in 2 ounces of butter and let it cool.
Once cooled, add the yolks of 3 eggs and mix well.

Boil and serve

Flour a wet cloth or butter a basin, then pour the batter into it.
Tie the cloth tightly or cover the basin, and place it bottom-up in boiling water.
Boil for 1.5 hours, then serve with plain butter and sweet 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.

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.

Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fine flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard-like batter.
Milk: Forms the liquid base that sets into the pudding.
Egg yolks: Add richness and help the pudding set as it cooks.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth or covering the basin. A tight seal keeps boiling water out of the batter, so the pudding cooks through without becoming watery.

Swap the ginger

The recipe marks ginger as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, egg, nutmeg, lemon, sauce):

Cinnamonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, egg, nutmeg, lemon, sauce. 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.