Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Custard Podding
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
In a small bowl, mix the flour with a little cold milk until smooth.
Add the flour mixture to the boiling milk and stir until slightly thickened.
Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add them to the mixture and stir until it boils again.
Stir in the sugar and bake until thickened.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard and provides most of its body.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as its starch swells when heated, giving the custard body.
- Eggs
- Set during baking and bind the custard into a tender, sliceable pudding.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps soften the set custard's texture.
The step that matters
Adding the eggs to the hot mixture. Eggs can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring the beaten eggs into the thickened mixture gradually, while keeping it below a hard boil until the custard thickens, helps keep it smooth.
“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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