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Dessert

Steamed Batter Pudding

A steamed pudding made from a batter of sour milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, and flour, served with sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Steamed Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sour milk, eggs, butter, and baking powder.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a thick batter.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for at least 1 hour until cooked through.

  2. Serve warm with sugar 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. 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
Set during steaming to give the pudding its structure.
Flour
Forms the batter's body and sets into the pudding's crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to lift and lighten the pudding.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and a slight tang to the batter.

The step that matters

Steam for at least 1 hour until cooked through. Gentle, steady steam heats the batter evenly so the eggs and flour set throughout. Stopping early leaves the centre wet and gummy, so keep the steam going until the pudding is fully set.

“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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