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Dessert

Golden Pudding

A sweet baked pudding with a butter and sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Golden 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.

Make the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Beat the eggs separately, then add the yolks to the butter and sugar mixture; mix well.

  4. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the lemon juice.

  6. Pour the batter into shallow pans and bake for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, beat the butter and sugar together.

  2. Moisten the flour with a little cold water, then pour the boiling water over it and stir.

  3. Add the beaten egg white and lemon juice, then cook over boiling water until thickened.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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
Egg yolks enrich the batter and help bind it, while the whipped whites add lightness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Cooking the sauce over boiling water. Flour thickens only when its starch is heated in liquid long enough to swell. Stir steadily while it cooks so it thickens smoothly without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, butter, flour, sauce):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, butter, flour, sauce. 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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