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 ↓
Battee 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the milk, egg yolks, sifted flour, and salt.
Make the batter
Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the milk mixture.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake
Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown.
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
- Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, lifting the pudding as it bakes and giving it a light texture.
- Flour
- Starch sets as it heats, giving the pudding its structure once the batter bakes.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and yolks and gives the pudding its moist body.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stirring instead of folding knocks out the air trapped in the beaten whites, so the pudding rises less and turns dense. Fold gently, cutting through the mixture until no streaks remain.
“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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