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Dessert

Butterscotch Pudding

A sweet pudding made with butter, cornstarch, brown sugar, milk, egg, caramel, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Butterscotch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then add the cornstarch and blend well.

  2. Stir in the brown sugar, followed by the scalded milk.

  3. Cook over hot water, stirring constantly until thick.

  4. Continue cooking for 45 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

  5. Add the beaten egg, caramel, and salt, then cook for an additional 5 minutes.

Serve

  1. Pour into a serving dish and serve with cream and sugar.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smooth, rounded flavor.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture as it heats, giving the pudding its set body.
Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and the caramel-like butterscotch flavor.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into a pudding.
Egg
Adds richness and helps thicken the pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cooking until thick, then holding the heat gently. Cornstarch must be stirred constantly while heating so it thickens smoothly without lumps or scorching on the bottom. Once the pudding is thick, continued gentle cooking with stirring keeps the starch fully swollen and the texture smooth.

“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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