Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓
Good Yorkshire Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Whisk the eggs well and strain them.
Gradually mix the eggs with the flour.
Slowly pour in enough milk to achieve a batter consistency similar to thin cream.
Preheat and bake
Preheat a tin by placing it under a roasting joint, preferably beef.
Beat the batter briskly just before pouring it into the hot tin.
Bake until the pudding is firm and well-colored on the surface.
Divide the pudding into quarters.
Turn the quarters to brown the underside.
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.
-
Flour + milktop 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).
-
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and milk 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
- Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set firm as it bakes.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the batter body and lets the pudding rise.
- Whole milk
- Supplies moisture and liquid that turns to steam, helping the pudding puff.
The step that matters
Preheat the tin until very hot before pouring in the batter. A screaming-hot tin with fat makes the batter sizzle on contact, starting steam and rise immediately. A cool tin lets the batter soak in and bake flat and dense.
“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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