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 ↓
Small Custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard
Dissolve the sugar in the milk.
Beat the eggs well and mix them with the milk and sugar.
Strain the mixture into a buttered basin, filling it completely.
Cook and serve
Cover the basin with a buttered sheet of writing paper and a floured cloth, tying them tightly.
Boil the pudding gently for 25 minutes.
Let it stand for 4 to 5 minutes before turning it out to prevent spreading.
Serve with wine sauce.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Eggs
- Set the custard into a firm, sliceable structure as they cook.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the eggs thicken into a custard.
- Pounded sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the custard.
The step that matters
Boil the pudding gently. Egg custards turn spongy and watery if cooked too hard or fast. Gentle heat lets the eggs set evenly without curdling or forming holes.
“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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