Name: A Fine Plain Baked Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart milk; 3 bay leaves; ½ cup all-purpose flour; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ pound butter; ¼ pound sugar; 12 eggs; 6 egg whites; Puff pastry for lining the dish

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 ↓

A Fine Plain Baked Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

In a pot, heat the milk with the bay leaves until it boils slightly.
Whisk in the flour and salt to create a thick hasty pudding.

Make the pudding

Remove from heat and stir in the butter and sugar until well combined.
Beat the eggs and egg whites, then mix them into the pudding mixture.

Bake

Line a baking dish with puff pastry and pour the mixture in.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs: Set the custard and add richness and structure as the pudding bakes.
Egg whites: Add structure and lift, helping the pudding set firmly.
All-purpose flour: Thickens the milk into a stiff hasty pudding base.
Butter: Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and flavor.
Milk: Provides the liquid that the flour thickens and the eggs set.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps with browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Whisking in the flour and salt. Flour must be whisked smoothly into the hot milk so it thickens evenly; adding it lumpy or too fast leaves clumps that stay in the finished pudding.

“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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A Fine Plain Baked Pudding