Skip to main content
Dessert

Corn Starch Pudding

A sweet pudding made from corn starch, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, and nutmeg or lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Corn Starch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the custard base

  1. In a bowl, wet the corn starch with a little milk.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix them with the corn starch.

  3. Add the sugar to the mixture.

  4. In a saucepan, boil the remaining milk with salt.

  5. Pour the hot milk over the egg and corn starch mixture.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring constantly.

  2. When nearly done, stir in the butter and extract.

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

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable pudding as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and smoother texture.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly. Starch granules can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan, and they only thicken fully when heated while being stirred. Constant stirring keeps heat even so the pudding thickens smoothly without lumps or a burnt taste.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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

More corn starch pudding recipes

Chocolate 3 See all 77 →

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes