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Dessert

Arrowroot Pudding

A sweet custard made with milk, arrowroot, spices, eggs, and baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Arrowroot Pudding

Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Arrowroot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the milk

  1. Simmer the milk with allspice, coriander seeds, and cinnamon for 10-15 minutes.

  2. Sweeten the milk with sugar and strain it into a basin.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold water, stirring continuously.

  2. Once the milk has cooled, add the beaten eggs and stir until well blended.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold or dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30-40 minutes or until set.

  3. Serve with wine sauce.

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.

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.

  1. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Allspice + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set when baked, giving the pudding its firm, sliceable structure.
Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid and gives the pudding a smooth, glossy body as it sets.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens and sets into the body of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the milk so the pudding tastes sweet without masking the spices.

The step that matters

Add the eggs only after the milk has cooled. Eggs scramble when added to very hot liquid, leaving lumps. Letting the milk cool first lets the eggs blend in evenly, so the baked pudding sets smooth and uniform.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, allspice, cinnamon, sugar, arrowroot, egg, butter):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, allspice, cinnamon, sugar, arrowroot, egg, butter. 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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