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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A sweet, custard-like pudding made with sugar, butter, flour, milk, eggs, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Sponge Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the sugar and butter together until smooth.

  2. Mix the flour with a little of the milk until smooth, then boil the remaining milk and stir it in.

  3. Pour the mixture over the beaten butter and sugar, then let it cool for 1 hour.

Bake and serve

  1. Add the egg yolks and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Place the dish in a pan of hot water and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Serve hot with 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Whites trap air for lightness, while yolks add richness and help set the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture and gives the pudding its structure as it sets.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the crumb.
Milk
Provides moisture and, once boiled and thickened with flour, a smooth base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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