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Yorkshire Pudding

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Yorkshire Pudding

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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center.

  2. Break the eggs into a separate bowl and add them to the flour.

  3. Gradually add half the milk while stirring until smooth, then beat well.

  4. Add the remaining milk in the same way and let the batter rest for 1 hour if possible.

Bake

  1. Cover the bottom of a baking tin with hot fat from the meat.

  2. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for about 30 minutes in a hot oven (400°F or 200°C) while roasting meat.

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.

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.

  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).

  4. Meat + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,703 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

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
Forms the main structure of the batter as its starch and proteins set in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it puff and set into a light, hollow shape.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that turns the flour into a pourable batter that steams and rises.
Dripping
Hot fat in the tin sizzles on contact with the batter, helping it rise and brown the outside.

The step that matters

Heating the fat before the batter goes in. The batter must hit very hot fat so its outside sets quickly and steam pushes it up. A cold or lightly warm tin makes the pudding flat and 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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