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Baking

To Make Batter for Fruit Puddings

A batter made from flour, salt, milk, and egg whites used for fruit puddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Batter for Fruit Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a pan, combine the flour and salt.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk until smooth, avoiding lumps.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites to a solid froth.

  4. Strain the beaten egg whites into the batter and mix well.

Finish the batter

  1. For fruit, make the batter slightly thicker to prevent sinking.

  2. Adjust the consistency with more milk if needed.

  3. The batter can be baked or boiled.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the batter its body and structure.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and sets the batter's thickness, which controls how it flows and bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten to a froth, they trap air and add lift and a lighter, airier texture.

The step that matters

Make the batter slightly thicker for fruit. Fruit is denser than batter, so a thin batter lets it sink to the bottom. A thicker batter suspends the fruit evenly while it cooks.

“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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