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Dessert

Corn Starch Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from milk, corn starch, sugar, and egg whites, flavored with vanilla or almond extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Corn Starch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald 3 cups of milk in a double boiler.

  2. Dissolve ½ cup of corn starch in 1 cup of cold milk.

  3. Slowly pour the corn starch mixture into the scalded milk while stirring.

  4. Add ⅓ cup of sugar and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

  5. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring continuously for the first 5 minutes and occasionally thereafter.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Fold the beaten egg whites into the mixture.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add flavoring to taste.

  5. Pour the mixture into a mold that has been wet with cold water.

  6. Once cold, turn out the pudding.

Serve

  1. Serve with a liquid sauce or preserved raspberries.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it cooks and sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into custard.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks and folded in, adding lightness and airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and softens its set texture slightly.

The step that matters

Stirring the starch into the milk. Corn starch clumps if added to hot milk or left unstirred, and starch needs sustained stirring and heat to thicken evenly into a smooth pudding.

“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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