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 ↓
Cottage 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the beaten eggs and mix well.
Stir in the milk, salt, and dissolved baking soda.
Sift in the cream of tartar and flour, mixing until combined.
Bake
Pour the batter into a buttered baking tin.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the crumb brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, binding the batter together.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives a soft texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
The step that matters
Sift in the cream of tartar and flour, mixing until combined.. Baking soda and cream of tartar react as soon as they meet liquid, so the batter should be mixed promptly and baked without long delay to keep the rising gas in the batter.
“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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