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 ↓
Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Thoroughly beat the eggs in a bowl.
Make a batter by mixing the eggs with the flour and milk, then season with pepper and salt.
Bake and serve
Well butter a shallow tin and pour in the batter.
Cut the remaining butter into small pieces and scatter them over the batter.
Bake for 45 minutes until golden brown.
Serve with vegetables, potatoes, and sauce.
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.
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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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Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,939 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Oats + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,119 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as the pudding bakes.
- Wheatmeal flour
- Forms the gluten-based structure that holds the risen batter together.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps the batter expand with steam in the hot oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat that helps the pudding brown and crisp at the edges.
The step that matters
Preheat the oven and tin until very hot before pouring in the batter. Batter poured into a hot, fatted tin sizzles at once, which starts the rise quickly. A cool tin or oven lets the batter spread and sink instead of puffing up.
“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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