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 ↓
Custard Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Butter a 1½ pint dish and line the edge with pastry.
Make the custard
In a bowl, separate the yolks from 2 of the eggs and set the whites aside.
Stir the milk into the egg yolks.
Add the powdered sugar and mix well.
Whip the reserved egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.
Pour the custard into the prepared dish.
Bake and serve
Grate nutmeg over the top.
Bake in the oven for 30 minutes until set.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Whites trap air for lift, and yolks set the custard into a firm, creamy structure when baked.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that gives the custard its moisture and tender texture.
- Powdered sugar
- Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the milk and yolk mixture.
- Grated nutmeg
- Adds warm aromatic flavour to the top of the custard.
The step that matters
Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites hold air only while stiff, so they must be folded gently rather than stirred. Overmixing deflates the foam and leaves a denser custard, while gentle folding keeps it light.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, butter, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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