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Dessert

Cranberry Pudding

A baked pudding made with egg yolks, sugar, milk, flour, butter, cream of tartar, baking soda, and cranberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cranberry 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the milk and melted butter, then stir in the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Fold in the cranberries.

  5. Pour the mixture into a cake tin and bake until set.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix 1 tablespoon flour with a little cold water, then add 1 cup boiling water and boil for 1 minute.

  2. Let the sauce cool, then stir in the beaten egg whites and sugar until foamy.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Builds the structure of the pudding as its starch and protein set during baking.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter and give it a set, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to a tender, moist crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Cranberries
Add tartness that balances the sweetness and a bright flavour contrast.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with cold water before adding the boiling water. Flour added dry to hot liquid forms lumps as its surface starch gelatinises unevenly. Mixing it into a smooth paste with cold water first separates the particles, so the sauce thickens smoothly.

“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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