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 ↓
Minute Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs well in a bowl.
Add the flour and enough milk to make a smooth batter.
Cook and serve
Butter a saucepan and add the remaining milk with salt; bring to a boil.
Stir in the flour and egg mixture lightly; let it cook until thick, like corn mush.
Serve immediately with sweetened rich milk or cream flavored with grated nutmeg.
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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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it thickens.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk into a starchy, mush-like pudding as it cooks.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into the pudding.
The step that matters
Stir in the flour and egg mixture lightly. Adding the batter to boiling milk while stirring gently keeps it from clumping. Starch in the flour swells and thickens the milk as it heats, so the pudding needs enough time at heat to become thick.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, butter):
- Nutmegthe original
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
- Parsleyfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, 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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