Skip to main content
Dessert

Boiled Batter Pudding

A boiled pudding made from milk, flour, eggs, butter, and salt, served with sauce or jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Batter Pudding

6 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Put the flour into a basin, and add sufficient milk to moisten it.

  2. Carefully rub down all the lumps with a spoon.

  3. Pour in the remainder of the milk, and stir in the melted butter.

  4. Keep beating the mixture, add the eggs and a pinch of salt.

  5. When the batter is quite smooth, put it into a well-buttered basin, tie it down very tightly, and put it into boiling water.

Boil

  1. Move the basin about for a few minutes after it is put into the water, to prevent the flour settling in any part.

  2. Boil for 1-1/4 hour.

  3. (Optional) The pudding may also be boiled in a floured cloth that has been wetted in hot water; it will then take a few minutes less than when boiled in a basin.

Serve

  1. Send these puddings very quickly to table, and serve with sweet sauce, wine sauce, stewed fruit, or jam of any kind.

  2. When jam is used, a little of it may be placed round the dish in small quantities, as a garnish.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

682Calories
27 gProtein
14 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Forms the starch and structure that thickens the batter and sets as the pudding cooks.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during cooking, giving the pudding firmness and richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid base that gives the batter its smooth body.

The step that matters

Move the basin after it goes into the water. Flour is denser than the liquid and tends to sink, so moving the basin for a few minutes keeps it evenly dispersed and prevents a dense, uneven layer at the bottom.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes