Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Kiss Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Dissolve the cornstarch in a little milk and stir it into the boiling milk.
Add the sugar and egg yolks, mixing well.
Top and brown
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.
Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pudding and brown lightly under a broiler.
Serve with cream.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 cornstarch thickens into a pudding.
- Cornstarch
- Thickens the milk as it boils, giving the pudding its set body.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and help thicken the custard as it cooks.
- Egg whites
- Whip into a stiff foam that forms the topping, which browns under the broiler.
- Powdered sugar
- Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and sweetens the topping.
The step that matters
Spread the egg white mixture on top of the pudding and brown lightly under a broiler.. Egg white foam can collapse or turn grainy if overbeaten or left too long, and it browns quickly under a broiler, so it should be watched closely and removed once lightly golden.
“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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