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Yorkshire-pudding

A baked batter made from flour, eggs, milk, salt, and fat, cooked in a hot oven until puffed.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Yorkshire-pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, eggs, milk, salt, and melted fat until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking sheet with an upturned rim, coated with a thin layer of fat.

  2. Bake in the oven until puffed and golden, about 20-25 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the batter structure as it sets.
Eggs
Set during baking and provide the lift that makes the pudding puff.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that turns the batter into steam for rising and adds moisture.
Melted fat
Adds richness and helps the edges brown and crisp in the hot oven.

The step that matters

Bake until puffed and golden. The batter rises because its water turns to steam in a hot oven while the egg and flour set around it. Underbaking leaves the centre wet and the pudding flat, so it should be baked until well puffed and golden.

“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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