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Dessert

Cornstarch Pudding

A sweet pudding made with cornstarch, eggs, milk, and sugar, finished with a lemon or vanilla flavored sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Cornstarch Pudding

Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cornstarch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Stir cornstarch smooth in a little cold water in a bowl.

  2. Pour boiling water over the cornstarch and mix well.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites, sugar, and salt.

  4. Steam for 15 minutes or cook slowly until thickened.

Make the sauce

  1. Heat milk to boiling.

  2. Beat egg yolks and sugar until creamy.

  3. Stir the mixture into the hot milk.

  4. Boil until smooth.

  5. Remove from heat and flavor with lemon or vanilla.

  6. Allow the sauce to cool before serving with the pudding.

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 + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the boiled liquid into a smooth, set pudding as its starch gelatinizes.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add lightness and an airy, delicate texture to the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken while adding richness and a smooth, custard-like body.
Milk
Forms the base of the sauce, giving it creaminess and body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and sauce and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolk mixture into the hot milk. Egg yolks can scramble if added to very hot liquid without care. Stirring the yolks in gradually and keeping the heat controlled lets the sauce thicken smoothly rather than curdle.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk. 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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