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 ↓
Boiled Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the egg whites and yolks separately, then combine them.
Add 10 tablespoons of flour and 10 teacups of milk to the egg mixture.
Stir in ¼ teaspoon of salt and pour into a mold.
In a saucepan, combine 4 teacups of brown sugar and 1 cup of water; bring to a boil.
Thicken the sauce with 2 tablespoons of flour mixed with ¼ pound of butter.
Season the sauce with orange peel or nutmeg.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, sugar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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