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 ↓
Lemon Souffle Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
In a saucepan, mix the milk with the potato flour gradually to avoid lumps.
Heat the mixture over medium heat, adding the butter until it begins to set.
Remove from heat and stir in the powdered sugar mixed with lemon zest.
Gradually work in the egg yolks, stirring without boiling.
Fold and steam
Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.
Butter a mold and line it with buttered paper.
Pour the mixture into the mold and place it in a stewpan on two skewers.
Fill the stewpan with hot water halfway up the mold and bring to a boil.
Cover and cook on low heat for 1 hour.
Serve
Turn out onto a dish, remove the paper, and serve with hot custard.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Potato + lemontop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,230 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,456 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Potato flour
- Thickens the milk into a smooth base that holds the pudding's shape.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the base and set during gentle cooking, giving a tender custard texture.
- Egg whites
- Beaten and folded in, they trap air and lift the pudding into a light, souffle-like texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, fatty mouthfeel to the base.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the potato flour thickens.
The step that matters
Gradually work in the egg yolks, stirring without boiling. Egg yolks thicken and can curdle or scramble if they get too hot. Stirring them in gradually and keeping the mixture below boiling keeps the base smooth and creamy.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sugar, lemon, egg):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Asparagusfits better
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, lemon, 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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