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 ↓
Arrow-root Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the pudding
Take ½ cup of new milk and mix it with ½ cup of arrow-root.
Boil the remaining milk and stir it into the arrow-root mixture.
When nearly cold, add the well-beaten yolks of 4 eggs, 2 ounces of pounded sugar, and 2 ounces of butter in small pieces.
Season with grated nutmeg and mix well.
Bake
Bake in a buttered dish at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 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.
-
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together24,377 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together24,744 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
- Arrow-root
- Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard-like pudding texture.
- Egg yolks
- Enrich the pudding and help it set while adding richness and colour.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a softer, richer mouthfeel in the baked pudding.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the arrow-root thickens as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.
The step that matters
Boil the remaining milk and stir it into the arrow-root mixture. Arrow-root is a starch that thickens only when heated in liquid. Stirring the boiling milk into the slurry lets the starch gelatinise evenly, while adding the eggs only once the mixture has cooled slightly prevents them from scrambling.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar, butter):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits less well
- Parsleyfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, butter. 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.
More arrowroot pudding recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.