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
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 batter
Beat the eggs, sugar, and butter together until creamy.
Add the sweet milk, flour, and baking powder, mixing well.
If desired, fold in your choice of fruit.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and tenderness, and helps the batter cream with the sugar.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps browning, and creaming with butter traps air.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure that sets the pudding as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, so the pudding rises and becomes light.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form the batter.
The step that matters
Creaming the eggs, sugar, and butter. Beating until creamy traps air in the fat and sugar, which gives the batter lift. Under-beaten batter bakes up dense, while the baking powder adds further rise.
“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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