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Dessert

Corn-starch Pudding with Fruit

A sweet pudding made from milk, corn starch, egg, sugar, vanilla, and fruit, chilled and served with sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Corn-starch Pudding with Fruit

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Scald the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix corn-starch with a little cold water.

  3. Stir the mixture into the scalded milk and cook for five minutes.

  4. Place the upper part of the double boiler on the fire and let the corn-starch boil.

  5. Return the upper part to its place.

Add the egg and sugar

  1. Beat together the sugar, egg, and salt.

  2. Add the mixture to the beaten ingredients and cook for two minutes, stirring continually.

  3. Flavor with vanilla.

  4. Add the fruit.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold.

  2. Chill.

  3. Serve with sugar and 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. Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together558 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

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
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth custard.
Egg
Enriches the pudding and helps it set as it cooks.
Corn-starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it boils.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens its texture.
Fruit (in the method)
Adds fruity flavor and moisture to the set pudding.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg mixture with constant stirring. Gentle heat and continuous stirring keep the egg from scrambling while the starch thickens evenly, so the custard stays smooth rather than lumpy or grainy.

Swap the peach

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Peachthe original

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