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Dessert

Scalded Pudding

A milk pudding made with flour, eggs, ginger, and boiled milk, boiled in a cloth and served with a butter-sugar-vinegar sauce.

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 ↓

Scalded Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour and salt.

  2. Pour boiled milk over the mixture and beat until smooth.

  3. Once cooled, beat in eggs and grated ginger.

Cook and serve

  1. Butter a cloth and dredge it with flour.

  2. Tie the cloth tightly and boil for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with a sauce made of melted butter, sugar, and vinegar.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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
Thickens the milk mixture so the pudding sets firm rather than runny.
Eggs
Set during boiling to bind the pudding and give it a light, custard-like body.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the pudding its tender moisture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth tightly. A loose cloth lets water seep in during boiling, making the pudding soggy and loose. A firm, well-floured wrap keeps the pudding compact and helps it hold its shape.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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