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Dessert

Half-hour Pudding

A buttery cornmeal pudding made with egg yolks, whites, and powdered sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Half-hour Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks until well combined.

  3. Stir in the cornmeal.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Serve hot with sauce.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the batter.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter as it sets.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it rise.
Cornmeal
Provides the main body and grainy structure of the pudding.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that gives lift. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from collapsing, so the pudding stays light after baking.

“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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