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Dessert

Baked Hominy

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Baked Hominy

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the hominy until very smooth.

Make the batter

  1. Beat in the melted butter, whipped egg, sugar, salt, and milk.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pour into a pudding dish.

Bake

  1. Bake until set.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Milk + eggtop 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

Hominy
Forms the body of the pudding, giving it a soft, starchy base.
Egg
Sets during baking, binding the mixture into a firm custard-like texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the pudding stay tender.
Butter
Contributes fat for a richer flavor and smoother texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The egg is what firms the pudding. Underbaking leaves it runny in the centre, while overbaking can make it dry and grainy as the egg proteins tighten too far.

“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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