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 ↓
Custard 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).
Butter a dish that will hold the mixture.
Make the custard
Beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.
Stir in the milk and season with peach-water or lemon.
Pour the mixture into the buttered dish.
Bake
Place a pan half full of water in the oven and set the pudding dish into it.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + peachtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together781 recipes
Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard into a soft, sliceable structure as the proteins coagulate when heated.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and helps keep it tender.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base and moisture that gives the custard its smooth, creamy body.
The step that matters
Setting the dish in a water bath. A pan of water around the pudding dish moderates the oven's heat. This lets the egg proteins set gently into a smooth custard, instead of curdling, cracking or turning rubbery at the edges.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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