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Yorkshire Pudding

A baked batter made from milk, eggs, flour, and salt, cooked in dripping or oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Yorkshire Pudding

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Yorkshire Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt, making a well in the center.

  2. Break in the eggs and gradually stir, mixing in the flour from the sides.

  3. Add the milk gradually until a thick, smooth batter forms.

  4. Beat the batter well for 10 minutes, then add the remaining milk.

  5. Cover and let the batter rest for at least 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and cover the bottom of a pudding tin with a thin layer of dripping.

  2. While the tin and dripping heat up, beat the batter again.

  3. Bake the pudding for 10 minutes in the hot oven until the bottom is partially cooked.

  4. Alternatively, place the pudding in front of a fire until set and well browned.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter and lets the pudding rise.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its airy, rigid structure.
Milk
Thins the batter and provides moisture that turns to steam for rising.
Dripping
Gets very hot in the tin, searing the batter and helping it rise and brown.

The step that matters

Preheating the tin with dripping. The batter must hit a very hot, fat-coated tin so it sears and steams upward quickly. A cold tin or cool oven lets the batter spread and sink instead of rising.

“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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