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 ↓
Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the eggs with flour and salt until smooth.
Gradually add milk until the mixture is the thickness of cream.
Let the batter sit for 1 hour, stirring well before use.
Prepare and cook
Grease a basin or cloth with butter.
Boil for 30 minutes.
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 + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 when heated, giving the pudding its firm structure.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives it body as its starch absorbs liquid.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour and adds moisture, loosening the batter to a creamy thickness.
The step that matters
Gradually add milk until the mixture is the thickness of cream. Adding milk slowly and stirring lets flour starch hydrate evenly, which prevents lumps and gives a smooth batter. Adding it all at once can trap dry flour in clumps that do not dissolve well.
“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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