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Dessert

Fifteen-minute Pudding

A quick pudding made with egg yolks, flour, milk, egg whites, and salt, baked for 15 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fifteen-minute Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg yolks and flour.

  2. Gradually add the milk and mix well.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold in the salt and beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Pour into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the pudding while thickening as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk and egg mixture so it holds its shape after baking.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that sets into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the pudding and help it rise in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the whipped foam that gives the pudding its lift. Fold gently so the air stays trapped and the pudding rises rather than turning dense.

“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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