Skip to main content
Dessert

Arrowroot Pudding

A sweet custard made from arrowroot, milk, eggs, sugar, and butter, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Arrowroot Pudding

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 ↓

Arrowroot Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Mix the arrowroot with a little cold milk.

  2. Boil the rest of the milk and pour it over the arrowroot mixture, stirring well.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, and eggs, and mix until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Arrowroot + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk as it heats, giving the pudding a smooth, set body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens and the eggs set into.
Eggs
Help the pudding set and add structure and richness as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.

The step that matters

Mixing the arrowroot with cold milk first. Starch clumps when it meets hot liquid directly. Dispersing the arrowroot in cold milk before adding the boiled milk lets the starch thicken evenly, giving a smooth pudding instead of lumps.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar, 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.

More arrowroot pudding recipes

Lemon 3 See all 190 →

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes