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Dessert

Cherry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sour milk, butter, sugar, egg, and cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Cherry Pudding

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Cherry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the egg and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda with the sour milk.

  4. Alternately add the milk mixture and flour to the butter mixture, stirring until smooth.

  5. Fold in the cherries.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter individual cups and fill them one-third full with the batter.

  2. Steam the cups for one hour or more until cooked through.

  3. Serve hot with any butter sauce or cherry juice.

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.

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. Milk + buttertop 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 + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 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).

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.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda, and it adds moisture and tang.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that gives the pudding a tender texture.
Cherries
Add fruit flavour, moisture and sweetness to the batter.

The step that matters

Alternately add the milk mixture and flour. Adding the flour in portions while stirring keeps the batter smooth and evenly mixed. Overmixing once the flour is in develops gluten, which can make the pudding tough.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Milletfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

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