Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Potatoe-Flour Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
Boil cinnamon, lemon peel, and sugar in milk.
Strain the mixture.
Mix potato flour with a little cold milk until smooth.
Stir the potato flour mixture into the milk until nearly cold.
Bake
Add beaten eggs, sweet wine or spirits, and marmalade.
Bake in a Dutch oven.
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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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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, set pudding texture.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help the pudding set as it bakes.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the thickener and eggs set into custard.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the spices and wine.
The step that matters
Stir the potato flour mixture into the milk until nearly cold. Potato flour thickens as it heats, so adding it to hot milk can cause lumps. Letting the mixture cool nearly to cold before adding the eggs keeps the eggs from scrambling and helps the custard set smoothly.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cinnamon, lemon, sugar, flour, egg, wine):
- Arrowrootfits better
- Sweet potatofits better
- Shallotfits better
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cinnamon, lemon, sugar, flour, egg, wine. 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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