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Dessert

Woodford Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, sugar, flour, jam, cinnamon, sour milk, and baking soda.

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

Woodford Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Beat the yolks of the eggs well and mix in the sugar, flour, jam, and cinnamon.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and add to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Bake slowly for 30 to 40 minutes.

  4. Serve with whipped cream.

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.

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks enrich the batter with structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that sets the pudding body.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown lightly as it bakes.
Jam or preserves
Adds fruit sweetness, moisture, and the main flavor of the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Egg whites hold air from whipping, which gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the pudding comes out dense. Fold gently and stop once no streaks remain.

“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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