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Puddings , Souffles, Etc

A steamed vanilla pudding made with butter, flour, milk, sugar, yolks, vanilla extract, and folded egg whites.

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

Puddings , Souffles, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a large enamel pan.

  2. Add the flour and blend over gentle heat, cooking for a few minutes.

  3. Gradually stir in the milk and bring to a boil for 2 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, then add the yolks and vanilla when slightly cooled.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the egg whites until the mixture is uniform.

  2. Pour the mixture into a prepared tin and steam gently for 35 minutes.

  3. Serve with raspberry sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Egg whites
Whipped or folded in, they trap air and lift the soufflé as it cooks.
Yolks
Add richness and emulsify the base, helping it set smoothly.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a stable base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds flavour as it forms the roux with the flour.
Milk
Forms the liquid body of the base that the flour thickens.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the set texture slightly.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Overmixing knocks air out of the whites, while undermixing leaves streaks. Gentle folding keeps the foam intact so the soufflé rises evenly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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