Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Caramel Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the caramel
Stir the caster sugar with a few drops of water in a saucepan until it reaches the color and consistency of treacle.
Pour the caramel into a dry mold, turning it to coat the sides completely.
Make the custard
Boil the milk in another saucepan for five minutes.
Add the beaten eggs, sugar, and flavoring to the milk, then pour the mixture into the mold.
Steam and serve
Cover the mold with greased paper and steam for about thirty minutes until firm.
Carefully turn the pudding onto a hot dish; no sauce is needed as the caramel becomes liquid during cooking.
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 + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Eggs
- Set the custard into a firm, sliceable pudding as they cook with the milk.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that gives the custard its soft, tender body.
- Castor sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and, when caramelized, forms the liquid sauce that coats the finished dish.
The step that matters
Cooking the caramel to treacle colour. Sugar darkens quickly near the end of cooking, so stopping at the right colour gives a rich flavour without bitterness. Too pale tastes weak, and too dark turns harsh and burnt.
“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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