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Hominy Pudding

A baked pudding made with hominy, eggs, butter, milk, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Hominy 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. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and then the milk, mixing well.

  3. Pour this mixture onto the hominy, mixing slowly with a fork to break up lumps.

  4. Add the melted butter and mix until combined.

  5. If the hominy is properly salted, add only ¼ teaspoon of salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm, about 30 minutes.

  2. Serve with sauce or sugar.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable custard as they cook.
Hominy
Provides the bulk and body of the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, helping the custard stay tender when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Breaking up lumps in the hominy mixture. Pouring in the liquid and mixing slowly with a fork keeps the batter smooth. Lumps of hominy or unmixed egg can bake unevenly, leaving pockets of texture that do not set uniformly.

“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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