Why it works: Semolina and sugar work together. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 351 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Milk Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the pudding
Combine farinaceous food and milk in a saucepan.
Cook gently on the stove until thickened.
If using eggs, beat them well and mix the beaten eggs into the pudding.
Bake
Transfer the mixture to a pie dish.
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Pour the mixture into the pie dish and bake for 4 hours or until set, adjusting time based on oven heat.
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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Semolina + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together351 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Semolina + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together316 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Farinaceous food
- Starch that thickens the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs set into.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding a firmer, custard-like structure.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to the pudding.
The step that matters
Cooking the milk and starch gently until thickened. Starch granules swell and thicken the milk as it heats, but high heat or stirring neglect can scorch the milk on the bottom of the pan or leave lumps. Gentle, attentive heat gives a smooth, evenly thickened base.
“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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