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 ↓
Custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Bring the milk to a boil.
In a bowl, beat together the flour and butter.
Gradually add the boiling milk to the flour and butter mixture, cooking for 8 minutes while stirring often.
Make the custard
In another bowl, beat the sugar and egg yolks together.
Combine the cooked mixture with the egg yolk mixture and let it cool.
Once cool, beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mixture.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish and bake for 20 minutes.
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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Butter + milktop 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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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 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
- Yolks thicken and set the custard, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that cooks with the flour to form a thick base.
- Flour
- Starch thickens the hot milk into a base that holds the custard together.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the base.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and adds tenderness to its texture.
The step that matters
Adding the boiling milk gradually while stirring. Pouring the hot milk in slowly and stirring keeps the flour dispersed so lumps do not form. Cooking the mixture for the full time thickens the starch and cooks out the raw flour taste.
“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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