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Dessert

Corn Starch Pudding

A sweet pudding made with eggs, corn starch, milk, sugar, and lemon juice, served warm or chilled with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Starch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Add corn starch, sugar, and milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in lemon juice for flavor.

Cook and serve

  1. Cook the mixture over medium heat, stirring constantly until it thickens.

  2. Serve warm or chilled, topped with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten into the mixture, they add richness and help the pudding set and hold together.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, giving the pudding its creamy texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the pudding.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly. Corn starch only thickens once the liquid reaches a simmer and its granules swell. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly, preventing scorching at the bottom and lumps from forming.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, corn, sugar, milk, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, corn, sugar, milk, cream. 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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