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Preserve

Cornstarch Pudding

A sweet pudding made from milk, sugar, cornstarch, salt, and vanilla, thickened by simmering.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cornstarch Pudding

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cornstarch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Mix the cornstarch with a small amount of cold milk.

  2. Scald the remaining milk in a saucepan.

  3. Add the sugar or corn syrup, salt, and cornstarch mixture to the scalded milk.

  4. Stir continuously until the mixture thickens.

  5. Cover and cook for 20 minutes on low heat.

  6. Add vanilla extract before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve cold, plain or with fruit.

  2. For chocolate cornstarch pudding, add a square of chocolate to the milk.

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.

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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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 milk into a smooth, set pudding as it heats.
Milk
Forms the body of the pudding and gives it a creamy richness.
Sugar or corn syrup
Adds sweetness and softens the flavor of the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the mixture thickens. Cornstarch can clump and scorch on the bottom of the pan if left unstirred. Constant stirring spreads the heat and lets the starch granules swell evenly as the mixture thickens.

“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.

More cornstarch pudding recipes

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