Skip to main content
Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A baked milk and egg sponge pudding with butter, flour, sugar, vanilla, and wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Sponge 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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the milk in a two-quart basin, then place it in a saucepan filled one-third with boiling water.

  2. Rub butter, flour, and sugar together, then gradually stir in the milk until a thick batter forms.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and add them to the batter.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish, place it in a pan of water, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Serve hot 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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 when beaten, and the proteins set during baking to give the pudding its light structure.
Flour
Starch thickens with the milk and sets during baking, giving the pudding body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that forms the batter and keeps the baked pudding moist.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that lifts the pudding. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks out that air, so the pudding bakes dense instead of light.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, sugar, egg. 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 sponge pudding recipes

Steamed 7Chocolate 4Treacle 3 See all 120 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes