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Dessert

Cottage Pudding with Cocoa Sauce

A baked cottage pudding topped with a cocoa sauce made from flour, cocoa, butter, water, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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 with Cocoa Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar with the egg yolk until light.

  2. Add the milk, flour, baking powder, and salt; mix well.

  3. Beat the egg white to stiff peaks and fold it into the batter.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the batter into muffin tins and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  2. For the cocoa sauce, mix the flour and cocoa in a saucepan.

  3. Stir in the melted butter, then gradually add the boiling water.

  4. Before serving, stir in the sugar and vanilla extract.

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 + 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. Cocoa powder + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb through fat.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks, it traps air that lifts the batter as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes rise and become light.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake crumb and thickens the sauce.
Cocoa powder
Gives the sauce its chocolate flavour and deep colour.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and sauce and helps the cakes brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Stiff egg white holds the air that makes the pudding light. Folding gently keeps that air in, while vigorous stirring would deflate the batter and leave the cakes dense.

“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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