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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
If using large, solid canned corn, press it through a colander.
Melt the butter and mix it with the corn.
Beat the eggs until frothy, then add the milk, salt, and sugar.
Stir the egg mixture into the corn.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish.
Bake and serve
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown and puffed up.
Serve hot as a vegetable.
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 + 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).
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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 and give the pudding its puffed, sliced structure as they cook.
- Corn
- Provides the main body, sweetness and texture of the pudding.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds moisture and softness.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour and helping keep the pudding tender.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown and puffed. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Golden colour signals browning from the sugar and milk proteins.
“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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