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Dessert

Light Batter Pudding

A steamed pudding made from a light batter of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Light Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then fold into the butter mixture.

  6. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with sauce.

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. 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs
Egg whites add lightness and rise; yolks add richness and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, making the pudding rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a light crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold the air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks out that air, so fold gently with a spatula until just combined.

“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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