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 ↓
Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat a pot of water to boiling.
In a bowl, mix the milk, eggs, flour, and salt until smooth.
Strain the mixture through a coarse sieve.
Butter a basin or cloth before pouring in the mixture.
Tie the cloth loosely if using a cloth, or cover the basin with buttered paper.
Boil and serve
Boil the pudding in the water for 30-40 minutes, ensuring the water remains boiling.
Once done, dip the pudding in cold water to prevent sticking.
Let it cool for a few minutes, then carefully turn it out onto a dish.
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 + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Set the pudding into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives the pudding body as it cooks.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that the flour and eggs bind into a batter.
The step that matters
Keep the water at a full boil during cooking. Boiling water transfers heat steadily to the basin, so the egg and flour mixture sets evenly. If the water drops below a boil, the pudding cooks slowly and can turn out dense or uneven.
“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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