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Yorkshire Pudding

A baked batter made from milk, eggs, flour, salt, baking powder, and roast beef drippings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Yorkshire Pudding

Why it works: Milk and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,759 recipes. Both carry 1-hexanal, which smells fruit. The science ↓

Yorkshire Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsThe hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “the hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten egg yolks, salt, baking powder, and flour until smooth, resembling the consistency of cream.

  3. Prepare two biscuit tins by adding drippings from the roast beef.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour half of the pudding mixture into each tin.

  2. Place the tins in the hot oven and bake until the roast is ready, about 30 to 40 minutes.

  3. Remove the puddings from the oven just before serving and serve hot.

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 + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the structure that the batter sets around as the puddings bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help the puddings rise and set in the hot oven.
Milk
Adds moisture and body so the batter becomes a thin, pourable mixture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the puddings rise.
Drippings from roast beef
Fat that heats in the tins, helping the batter brown and crisp at the edges.

The step that matters

Heating the drippings in the tins before pouring the batter. The fat must be very hot when the batter goes in, so the batter sears on contact and begins to rise quickly. Cold or insufficiently hot fat leads to flat, greasy puddings.

“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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