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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A baked milk and egg sponge pudding made with sugar, flour, butter, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sponge Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Add flour and sugar.

  3. Cook until smooth, then remove from heat.

Add eggs and fill cups

  1. Add butter and beaten eggs.

  2. Pour the mixture into cups.

  3. Place the cups in a pan of water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 hour.

  2. Serve immediately after removing from the oven.

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 + milktop 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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Set the custard and add structure and richness as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding body and structure.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture for the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richer flavour and a softer, more tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the texture of the pudding.

The step that matters

Place the cups in a pan of water. This water bath surrounds the cups with gentle, even heat. Egg proteins set smoothly that way, while direct high heat can overcook them, causing curdling and a rubbery texture.

“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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