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Dessert

Marguerite Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, jam, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Marguerite Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the sugar and beaten egg, mixing well.

  3. Add a little milk to stiffen the mixture.

  4. Mix the baking powder into the butter mixture.

  5. Butter a basin and line it with jam.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared basin, cover with buttered paper, and steam for 2 hours.

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. Flour + sugartop 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the pudding once mixed with liquid and steamed.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, coating the base of the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam the pudding for the full 2 hours. Steam keeps the pudding moist while the flour sets and the baking powder raises it. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil dry can make the pudding heavy or dry, so the water level should be kept steady throughout.

“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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