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Dessert

Scalded Puddings

A baked milk pudding made with milk, flour, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, and clarified butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Scalded Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard base

  1. Boil the milk with a little cinnamon.

  2. Mix the flour with a little cold milk.

  3. Gradually pour the boiling milk onto the mixed flour, stirring well.

  4. Add the sugar.

  5. Let it cool.

Bake and serve

  1. Mix in the beaten eggs.

  2. Grease cups with clarified butter.

  3. Pour the mixture into the cups.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until set.

  5. Turn out onto a dish.

  6. Sift fine sugar over.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base that sets into the body of the pudding.
Flour
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set with a smooth, tender texture.
Egg whites
Add lift and structure, helping the pudding rise and hold its shape when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps soften the set texture of the custard.

The step that matters

Gradually pour the boiling milk onto the mixed flour, stirring well.. Adding hot milk too fast or without stirring can leave lumps of cooked starch in the batter. Pouring slowly while stirring lets the flour dissolve evenly and thicken smoothly.

“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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