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Batter Pudding, Boiled

A boiled pudding made from eggs, butter, milk, flour, and salt.

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 ↓

Batter Pudding, Boiled

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Put the flour into a bowl and add enough milk to moisten it.

  2. Rub out all the lumps with a spoon.

  3. Pour in the remaining milk and stir in the melted butter.

  4. Beat the mixture.

  5. Add the eggs and a pinch of salt. Mix until smooth.

Boil and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a well-buttered basin.

  2. Cover tightly.

  3. Place the basin in a pot of boiling water.

  4. Move the basin gently for a few minutes to prevent the flour from settling.

  5. Boil for 1 to 1½ hours.

  6. Serve the pudding quickly with a sauce, wine sauce, or stewed fruit.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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 help it set into a firm, sliceable pudding as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as the batter sets.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid base of the batter, giving a tender texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Move the basin gently while the batter is in the water. Flour settles quickly in a thin batter. Gentle movement keeps it evenly suspended, so the pudding cooks uniformly rather than becoming dense at the bottom.

“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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