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Dessert

Whey-cornstarch Pudding

A pudding made by thickening whey with cornstarch, butter, sugar, salt, and lemon or vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Whey and sugar work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 58 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Whey-cornstarch Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Heat the whey in a saucepan until it boils.

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, sugar, salt, cornstarch, and lemon or vanilla extract to form a smooth paste, adding a little whey or water as needed.

  3. Add the paste to the boiling whey and cook over direct heat until it thickens.

  4. Transfer to a double boiler and cook over hot water until smooth and clear, about 20 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the pudding into a mold and let it set.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar or a soft custard.

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.

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. Whey + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Whey + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together35 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the whey as its starch swells when heated, giving the pudding body and a smooth, clear set.
Whey
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding its flavour balance.
Butter
Adds fat, which contributes richness and a softer mouthfeel to the pudding.

The step that matters

Mixing the paste smoothly before adding it to the whey. Cornstarch clumps if it hits hot liquid dry. Blending it into a smooth paste with a little cool liquid first lets the granules disperse so the pudding thickens evenly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Bananafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against whey, butter, sugar. 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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