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Dessert

Princess Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Princess Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well for a few minutes after each addition.

  3. Sift the flour with the baking powder and add it to the mixture along with the brandy.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered molds.

  2. Place the molds in a saucepan of hot water, ensuring the water reaches halfway up the sides.

  3. Steam for 1.5 hours.

  4. Carefully turn out onto a dish and serve with lemon 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Creaming with butter adds structure and sweetness while helping the batter hold air.
Eggs
Add structure and richness as they bind the batter and set during steaming.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pudding rise and become light.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Keep the steaming water at a gentle, steady level. The molds need the water halfway up their sides so heat reaches the batter evenly. If the water boils dry or drops too low, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn out dense or underdone at the edges.

“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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