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Dessert

Arrowroot Pudding

A custard-like pudding made with arrowroot, milk, vinegar, eggs, and spices, baked in a pastry-lined dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Arrowroot Pudding

Why it works: Milk and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,346 recipes. Both carry sabinene, which smells woody, terpenic. The science ↓

Arrowroot 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 the custard

  1. Mix the arrowroot with 2 cups of cold milk.

  2. Pour this mixture into 1 pint of boiling milk with dissolved white vinegar.

  3. Stir constantly and add a pinch of mace or your choice of spice.

  4. Beat in 4 eggs until well combined.

Bake

  1. Line a baking dish with pastry and pour in the mixture.

  2. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

Variation

  1. For a clearer pudding, use water instead of milk and add one more egg.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + macetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,346 recipes

    Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).

  2. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Arrowroot + vinegartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Arrowroot + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together190 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, set custard as it cooks.
Eggs
Set the custard during baking and add richness and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and body.
White vinegar
Adds a slight acidity that helps the milk mixture thicken smoothly.

The step that matters

Stir constantly when adding the arrowroot mixture to boiling milk. Arrowroot thickens as it heats and can form lumps if left still. Constant stirring keeps the starch dispersed so the custard turns smooth and evenly thickened rather than clumpy.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (arrowroot, milk, vinegar, egg):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against arrowroot, milk, vinegar, egg. 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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