Name: Another Way to Make Batter Pudding
Ingredients: 4 egg yolks; 3 egg whites; 5 tablespoons flour; 2 cups milk; ½ teaspoon salt; 2 glasses white or sweet wine; 1 glass water; 3 tablespoons sugar; 1 large walnut-sized piece of butter

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 ↓

Another Way to Make Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the yolks of 4 eggs and the whites of 3 eggs for 15 minutes.
Gradually mix in 5 tablespoons of flour, 2 cups of milk, and ½ teaspoon of salt. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

Cook the pudding

Boil the mixture in a cloth for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

For the sauce, combine 2 glasses of wine, 1 glass of water, 3 tablespoons of sugar, and a piece of butter. Stir the sauce until it boils.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,873 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks: Add richness and emulsify the batter, helping it set smoothly when cooked.
Egg whites: Whipped by beating, they trap air that gives the pudding a light, tender lift.
Flour: Provides starch that thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Milk: Adds moisture and richness, loosening the batter and softening the final texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the wine sauce and helps it taste balanced against the wine's acidity.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture in a cloth for 1 hour. The batter is cooked by boiling in a cloth, so the cloth must be tied loosely enough for the pudding to expand. Keeping the water at a steady boil for the full hour lets the starch set the batter through.

Swap the walnut

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Hazelnutfits about as well
Walnutthe original

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

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Another Way to Make Batter Pudding