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 ↓
Common Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the eggs thoroughly.
Mix the eggs with 1 cup of milk.
Strain the mixture through a sieve.
Gradually add the mixture to ½ pound of flour.
Stir until smooth.
Thin the batter with another ½ cup of milk.
Boil and serve
Flour a wet pudding cloth.
Pour the batter into the cloth.
Leave room for it to swell.
Tie the cloth securely.
Place the cloth in boiling water.
Boil for 1 hour and 10 minutes.
Serve hot.
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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Egg + milktop 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
- Set the pudding and give it structure as they cook.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.
The step that matters
Leave room for it to swell. Flour-thickened batter expands as it cooks in the cloth. If it is packed in tightly, the pudding can be squeezed and become dense, or the cloth can burst.
“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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