Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Light Flour Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
Boil the milk in a saucepan.
Mix the flour smoothly with the hot milk.
Let the mixture cool, stirring occasionally to prevent settling.
Once cool, add the beaten egg yolk and salt.
Cook and serve
Grease a teacup or small pudding basin and pour in the mixture.
Securely tie it up and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.
Boil for 30 minutes until firm enough to turn out.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Fine flour
- Thickens the milk into a set, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
- Egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps the pudding set firm when heated.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the yolk enriches.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour smoothly with the hot milk. Flour added to hot liquid clumps easily, and lumps cannot be removed later. Mixing it smooth first, then stirring while cooling, keeps the texture even.
“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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