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Dessert

Corn-starch Jelly

A sweet gelatinous dessert made by thickening boiling milk with corn starch, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn-starch Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the jelly

  1. Wet the corn starch, sugar, and salt with cold water.

  2. Stir the mixture into the boiling milk.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into cups placed in a pan of cold water.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

Milk and sugar 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

Corn starch
Thickens the milk as its starch granules swell and gel when boiled.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and gives the jelly its creamy body and flavor.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild, starchy taste of the jelly.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Cornstarch only thickens fully once it reaches a boil and its granules swell. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan, which would give a grainy or burnt 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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