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 ↓
Corn Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Score and scrape the corn from the cob.
Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.
Make and bake the pudding
Mix the butter, salt, pepper, sugar, milk, and corn together.
Combine the beaten eggs with the mixture.
Pour into a buttered dish and bake for 45 minutes.
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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Beaten eggs set the custard, giving the pudding its structure as it bakes.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a soft, custardy texture.
- Corn
- Adds sweetness and body, contributing the main flavor and texture of the pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smoother, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Combine the beaten eggs with the mixture. Eggs set when heated, so the pudding needs gentle, even mixing to avoid lumps. Baking too hot or too long can make the custard curdle or turn rubbery.
“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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