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Dessert

Boiled Berry Pudding

A simple pudding made with flour, milk, eggs, butter, and berries, boiled until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Boiled Berry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add milk, melted butter, and eggs; stir until combined.

  3. Gently fold in the berries.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding cloth or mold.

  2. Boil for the recommended time until cooked through.

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, helping the pudding rise and stay light.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set with heat, giving the pudding its firm, cohesive body.
Melted butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the pudding tender.
Berries
Add moisture, sweetness and acidity, and colour to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Boil until cooked through. Egg proteins set with heat, so a pudding taken off the heat too soon stays wet and custardy in the centre. Cook until the middle is firm, not just the outside.

“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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