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 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Roll the soda crackers into fine crumbs.
Make the batter
In a bowl, combine the corn, cracker crumbs, milk, beaten egg, salt, pepper, and butter. Mix well until combined.
Pour the mixture into a baking dish.
Bake
Bake at 300°F (150°C) 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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Corn + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Corn + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,324 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Corn + buttertop 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
- Egg
- Binds the mixture and helps it set into a custard-like pudding as it bakes.
- Soda crackers
- Crumbs absorb the milk and add body so the pudding holds together.
- Milk
- Provides liquid that gives the pudding a soft, moist, custardy texture.
- Corn
- Supplies the main ingredient, with sweetness and starchy body once baked.
The step that matters
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes. Gentle, moderate heat lets the egg set slowly into a smooth custard. Too high a temperature can curdle or toughen the egg and dry the pudding out.
“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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