Why it works: Arrowroot and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 242 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓
Arrowroot 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.
Make the batter
Beat the yolks of the eggs one by one into the arrowroot.
Add flavoring to taste.
Beat the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour the mixture into a greased pie dish.
Bake and serve
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for a few minutes until browned.
Serve immediately.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Arrowroot + vanillatop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together242 recipes
Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
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Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together27,347 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Arrowroot + eggtop 30% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together626 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).
Egg and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 27,347 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
- Arrowroot
- Forms the thickened body of the pudding as its starch sets with heat.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while whipped whites add lightness and help it rise.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten until stiff hold air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so folding gently keeps the pudding light instead of dense.
“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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