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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A steamed pudding made with eggs, sugar, milk, butter, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Cottage Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the milk and melted butter, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Sprinkle in the cream of tartar and stir until incorporated.

  4. Pour the mixture into a greased mold.

Steam

  1. Steam for 1.5 to 2 hours until set.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure as their proteins set into a tender, sliceable pudding when heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the crumb.
Milk
Supplies moisture and liquid for the batter to steam into a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat, richness and a softer, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Steam until just set. Egg proteins coagulate as the pudding heats, so it sets firm. Stopping at the point where it is set keeps it moist; steaming too long dries it out and makes it rubbery.

“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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