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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A baked pudding made with flour, butter, sugar, milk, salt, egg, baking powder, and served with chocolate sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cottage Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cake

  1. Mix the baking powder with the flour and sift them.

  2. Rub the butter and sugar together to a cream and beat into it the egg.

  3. Add the milk, in which the salt has been dissolved.

  4. Add the flour; beat well together and turn into a cake-tin having a tube in the center.

  5. Bake about twenty-five minutes in a moderate oven.

  6. Turn it onto a flat dish, leaving it bottom side up.

Make the chocolate sauce and serve

  1. Melt three ounces of Baker's chocolate in a dry pan.

  2. Add one half cupful of sugar and one half cupful of boiling water.

  3. Stir until well dissolved and smooth.

  4. Add one quarter teaspoonful of vanilla.

  5. Serve with chocolate sauce or other sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
27 gProtein
26 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
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)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 Mary Ronald. 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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 cake's crumb together as it bakes.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream and the cake brown.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and sets the batter.

The step that matters

Turn the cake out bottom side up. Inverting the warm cake onto a flat dish lets it rest without collapsing; handling it roughly before it has set can crush the crumb.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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