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Dessert

Berry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with sugar, eggs, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and fruit.

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

Berry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix sugar, eggs, melted butter, milk, flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.

  2. Stir in the fruit to suit your taste.

  3. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

Steam the pudding

  1. Steam the pudding for 1.5 hours.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan for the sauce.

  2. Add 1 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of cornstarch.

  3. Stir in a little cold water, then add boiling water.

  4. Cook the sauce until it thickens and creams.

  5. Flavor the sauce to taste.

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. Egg + flourtop 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help give the pudding its set, structured crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives richness to the pudding and sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the sauce reach a smooth, glossy texture.
Cornstarch (in the method)
Swells with heat to thicken the sauce into a smooth, pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Mixing the cornstarch into cold water before adding boiling water. Dry cornstarch clumps when it meets hot liquid. Mixing it smoothly first lets the starch granules swell evenly as the sauce heats, so it thickens without lumps.

“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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