Why it works: Flour and arrowroot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 525 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Mountain Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the base
Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Butter a pie dish and line it with ratafias.
Grate the lemon rind over the ratafias.
Make the custard
Mix the flour with a little cold milk to form a smooth paste.
Gradually add cold milk to make a total of 1 pint.
Boil the mixture for 10 minutes, stirring constantly.
Pour the mixture gently over the ratafias and soak for 10 minutes.
Top and bake
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, then stir in the sugar.
Add a little cornflour or arrowroot to stiffen the icing.
Arrange the icing on the pudding in small mounds to resemble mountains.
Bake in the oven until lightly browned.
Serve cold.
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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Flour + arrowroottop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together525 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together553 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Ratafias
- Crisp cookies that soak up the custard and form the pudding's base layer.
- All-purpose flour
- Thickens the cold milk into a smooth custard when boiled.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid custard that softens the ratafias as it soaks.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to stiff peaks, they create the light, airy meringue topping.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps it stay stable while whipped.
- Cornflour or arrowroot
- Stiffens the meringue so the mounds hold their shape while baking.
The step that matters
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be whipped fully and the sugar added carefully. Underwhipped or greasy whites will not hold their peaks, so the mountain shapes collapse and the topping turns flat and dense.
Swap the arrowroot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, flour, milk, egg, sugar):
- Arrowrootthe original
- Asparagusfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Sweet potatofits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, flour, milk, egg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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