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 ↓
Corn Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
In a saucepan, heat the milk.
In a bowl, blend the flour, butter, salt, and sugar together.
Add the blended mixture to the milk.
Stir in the corn and well-beaten eggs.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Place the baking dish in a larger dish filled with water to prevent the corn mixture from crusting too thick.
Bake until the mixture is firm.
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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Milk + corntop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,955 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + corntop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,165 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + corntop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,345 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help it set firm when baked.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk so the pudding holds its body rather than running loose.
- Corn
- Provides the main body and sweet corn flavour of the pudding.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the eggs and flour set into a custard.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a softer, moister texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the corn flavour come through.
The step that matters
Setting the water bath. Placing the baking dish in a larger dish of water insulates the custard so the edges do not overcook or crust too thick before the centre sets. Bake only until firm, since eggs keep setting as they cool and overbaking makes them grainy.
“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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