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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A sweet baked pudding made with butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour, baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and boiled water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cottage Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Rub the butter, sugar and egg together until light.

  2. Add the nutmeg and milk.

  3. Stir the baking powder into the flour while dry.

  4. Add the mixture just as the pudding is to be put in the oven.

Make the sauce

  1. Rub one tablespoon of flour in a little cold water until smooth.

  2. Turn the mixture into one pint of boiling water, letting it cook five minutes while stirring constantly.

  3. Add sugar, salt and nutmeg to suit the taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a quart basin very slowly.

  2. Bring to the table hot, cut like cake, and serve with sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
27 gFat
121 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Home for the Friendless (Chicago, Ill.). 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. See the original page.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the pudding rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crumb brown lightly.

The step that matters

Bake in a quart basin very slowly. Slow baking lets the batter rise and set through the middle before the outside browns or dries. Baking powder releases gas early, so a slow, steady oven helps keep the pudding light and tender rather than tough.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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