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Dessert

Dandy Pudding

A milk and egg pudding thickened with corn starch and sweetened with sugar.

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 ↓

Dandy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Take 1 cup of milk from the quart and scald it with a pinch of salt.

  2. Mix corn starch with the remaining uncooked milk until smooth.

  3. Combine the thickened mixture with the beaten egg whites and pour into molds.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, combine the scalded milk with the beaten egg yolks and sugar.

  2. Cook the sauce until thick, then flavor to taste and serve cold.

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

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

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

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. 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

Milk
Forms the body of both the pudding and the sauce, providing liquid and richness.
Eggs
Egg whites add structure to the pudding, while yolks thicken and enrich the sauce.
Corn starch
Gelatinizes when heated with liquid, thickening the pudding to a set, sliceable texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and adds flavor balance.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thick. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated, and the sauce only thickens properly when cooked gently with constant attention. Stop heating once it coats a spoon.

“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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