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Dessert

Plain Farina Pudding

A simple pudding made by heating milk, sugar, and farina, then adding eggs and vanilla, baking until brown, and serving cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Plain Farina Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk and sugar with the cold left-over farina until thoroughly hot.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla, stirring to combine.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake until brown.

  2. Serve cold with milk or cream.

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Provides the liquid that the starch and eggs set into a soft custard.
Farina
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set as they cook, giving the pudding its structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding the eggs to the hot mixture. Eggs can scramble when they meet very hot liquid, so add them while stirring steadily. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the custard smooth.

“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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