Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
White-mountain 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the egg and milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Flavor with lemon to your taste.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Frost the pudding and serve with sauce.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets in the oven.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure as it cooks.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the batter rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize and brown the crumb.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.. Adding dry ingredients gradually and stirring just until smooth keeps the batter evenly mixed and prevents lumps. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the pudding tough.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, butter, cream, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, butter, cream, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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