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Dessert

Sunderland Pudding

A sweet custard-like pudding made with milk, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Sunderland Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Heat the milk until hot, then stir in the butter and let it cool.

  2. Add the sugar, flour, and well-whisked eggs to the cooled milk mixture.

  3. Flavor with grated lemon rind and beat the mixture well.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter small cups and fill them a little more than half full.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on the size of the puddings.

  3. Serve with fruit, custard, or 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. 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. Milk + flourtop 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
Provide structure and lift as they set, giving the puddings their light, custardy body.
Flour
Gives the batter body so the puddings hold their shape as they bake.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the batter.
Milk
Supplies moisture that turns to steam in the oven, helping the puddings rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Fill the cups no more than half to two-thirds full. Batter that rises in the oven needs room to expand; overfilling can cause spillage and uneven baking, while underfilling yields flat puddings.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, flour, 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.

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