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Dessert

A Good Large Corn-Flour Pudding

A sweet pudding made from corn flour, milk, sugar, and flavored with almond or vanilla essence and cochineal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Good Large Corn-Flour Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar until warm.

  2. Gradually whisk in the corn flour and salt until smooth.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and add cochineal and essence.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and let it cool until set.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Corn + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Corn flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, firm pudding as it cooks and sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the corn flour thickens into a custard-like pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds body to the set texture.

The step that matters

Whisking in the corn flour. Corn flour added to warm liquid clumps easily unless it is whisked in gradually. Stirring constantly during cooking keeps the starch dispersed and prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan, which gives a smooth, evenly thickened pudding.

“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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