Name: Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup all-purpose flour; 2 cups milk; 1 large egg; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 1 teaspoon grated ginger; Butter for greasing the pan

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 ↓

Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix together the flour, milk, and beaten egg until smooth.
Add the salt and grated ginger, and mix well.

Bake and serve

Grease a square pan with butter and pour in the mixture.
Bake in the oven under the meat at 400°F (200°C) until browned.
Turn the pudding over to brown the other side.
Cut into pieces and serve on a dish.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

All-purpose flour: Provides the starch and gluten that give the batter structure as it sets.
Milk: Adds moisture and helps the batter bake into a tender, custard-like interior.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set and rise.

The step that matters

Bake under the meat at 400°F (200°C) until browned. The pan and fat must be very hot before the batter goes in. Hot fat makes the batter steam and puff quickly, so the pudding rises and crisps. A cold pan or cool oven yields a flat, dense pudding.