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Dessert

Corn Starch Pudding Without Milk

A milkless pudding made with boiling water, sugar, salt, eggs, cornstarch, vanilla, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Corn Starch Pudding Without Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding base

  1. In a pot, add sugar and salt to boiling water.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water and pour into boiling water.

  3. Stir well and let it boil for 2 minutes.

Finish and set

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  2. Remove from heat and add the egg yolks, beating vigorously.

  3. Stir in vanilla or other flavoring and fold in the whipped egg whites.

  4. Pour into a mold and let cool.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it gelatinizes and sets.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the pudding and the whipped whites add lightness and airy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps soften its texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the cornstarch mixture. Cornstarch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is held there, so the starch granules swell and set the pudding. Stirring keeps it smooth and prevents lumps.

“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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