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Dessert

Cranberry Pudding

A steamed or baked pudding made with eggs, flour, sugar, butter, milk, cranberries, and baking soda.

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

Cranberry 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. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, cream, and melted butter to the eggs and mix.

  3. Add the milk and stir until combined.

  4. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until combined.

  6. Fold in the cranberries until evenly distributed.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam the pudding for 2 hours.

  3. Alternatively, bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  4. Serve with sweet 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the pudding sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to help it rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Cranberries
Provide tart flavor and moisture through the pudding.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients. Adding the dry ingredients slowly and stirring only until combined helps keep the batter smooth and prevents overmixing, which can toughen the texture of the pudding.

“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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