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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A small cake baked in muffin rings, served with a wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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 ↓

Cottage Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl until smooth.

  2. Add the sugar and egg yolk, mixing until light and fluffy.

  3. Stir in the warm milk.

  4. Sift the flour with baking powder and salt, then add to the mixture.

  5. Whisk the egg white until stiff, then fold it into the batter.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Fill muffin rings less than half full with the batter.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

  3. For the wine sauce, mix corn starch, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  4. Add boiling water, caramel, and a pinch of salt to the saucepan.

  5. Boil covered for a few minutes.

  6. Stir in sherry before serving.

Serve

  1. Serve the cakes with the wine sauce and optional orange slices.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and gives the cakes richness and tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cakes once its starch sets in the oven.
Egg white
Whipped until stiff, it adds lift and an airy, light texture to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the cakes to rise in the oven.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps emulsify the batter for a smooth, tender crumb.
Corn starch
Thickens the boiled wine sauce to a smooth, glossy consistency.

The step that matters

Fill muffin rings less than half full. Batter rises considerably in the oven, so overfilling can cause spill-over and a dense, misshapen top. Leaving room lets the cakes rise evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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