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Dessert

A Cup of Arrowroot and Arrowroot Pudding

A custard-like pudding made from arrowroot, milk, sugar, and eggs, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Arrowroot and milk work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 817 recipes. Both carry 2-methylbutyraldehyde, which smells malty, chocolate. The science ↓

A Cup of Arrowroot and Arrowroot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. In a small basin, mix 2 teaspoons of arrowroot with 2 teaspoons of cold milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. In a small saucepan, heat ½ pint of cold milk until it boils.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the arrowroot paste, stirring continuously until smooth.

  4. Let the mixture cool slightly, then add the yolks of 2 eggs and whip well.

Bake and serve

  1. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the arrowroot mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

  3. Bake in a 240°F (115°C) oven for 10 minutes.

  4. Serve immediately.

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.

  1. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Arrowroot + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,073 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding a smooth, soft set.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the arrowroot thickens and the eggs enrich.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and help set the custard; whites are whisked to lighten the texture.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness to the pudding.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling milk over the arrowroot paste. Arrowroot thickens as it heats in liquid, so stirring continuously while adding the hot milk keeps the starch dispersed and prevents lumps, giving a smooth custard.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg. 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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