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Dessert

Swiss Pudding

A lemon pudding made from butter, flour, milk, eggs, and sugar, steamed in a buttered mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Swiss Pudding

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 ↓

Swiss Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add flour gradually.

  3. Scald milk with lemon rind.

  4. Add the scalded milk to the butter‑flour mixture.

  5. Cook the mixture for five minutes in a double boiler.

Finish the custard

  1. Beat the yolks of eggs until thick and lemon‑colored.

  2. Add sugar gradually to the yolks.

  3. Add the yolk‑sugar mixture to the cooked mixture.

  4. Cool the mixture.

  5. Cut and fold in the whites of eggs beaten stiff.

Steam and serve

  1. Turn the mixture into a buttered mould.

  2. Cover the mould.

  3. Steam for one and one‑fourth hours.

  4. While steaming, ensure the water surrounds the mould to half its depth and never falls below boiling point.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

845Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 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
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites, folded in whipped, lighten the pudding's texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and giving the base a smooth, tender body.
Flour
Mixed with butter and cooked with milk, it thickens the base so the pudding holds its structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks with the flour to make a thick, creamy custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the yolk mixture and adds sweetness to the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites beaten stiff trap air that lightens the pudding. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air in, so the steamed pudding rises and stays light rather than dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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