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Cream of Corn Soup

A creamy soup made with milk, corn, butter, flour, cream, salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cream of Corn Soup

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 ↓

Cream of Corn Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add the grated corn and cook for 20 minutes.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve and return it to the boiler.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a bowl, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Gradually add the soup to the butter and flour mixture, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  3. Stir in the cream, salt, and pepper.

  4. Finally, add the beaten egg yolk and serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the soup its creamy, smooth body.
Grated corn
Supplies the main corn flavor and, once pressed, the soup's body and sweetness.
Butter and flour
Form a roux that thickens the soup as it is stirred in.
Heavy cream
Adds richness and fat for a silky, velvety mouthfeel.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup, adding richness and a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Gradually add the soup to the butter and flour mixture, stirring constantly until it thickens.. Adding hot liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour dispersed, so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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