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 ↓
Minute Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Grease a double boiler or saucepan with a little butter.
Heat 1 quart of milk in the greased vessel until boiling.
Sift in 2 small cups of flour gradually, stirring briskly to avoid lumps.
Just before removing from heat, stir in 2 well-beaten eggs and mix briefly.
Serve
Serve immediately with cream and sugar if desired.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that thickens into the pudding.
- Flour
- Thickens the hot milk as its starch swells, giving the pudding body.
- Eggs
- Add richness and help set the pudding when stirred in while hot.
The step that matters
Sifting in the flour gradually while stirring briskly. Flour dropped in quickly clumps as its outer layer hydrates before the inside does, leaving lumps. Adding it slowly while stirring disperses each particle so the starch thickens the milk evenly.
“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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