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Dessert

Saxon Pudding

A steamed milk and flour pudding with egg yolks, orange sugar, and whipped egg whites, glazed with sugar and potato flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Saxon Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Gradually mix the flour with the milk to form a smooth paste.

  3. Add the butter and salt.

  4. Stir until it thickens. Remove from heat.

  5. Continue stirring until smooth.

  6. Return to heat.

Make the custard

  1. Gradually add the egg yolks, orange sugar, and a little salt.

  2. When frothy, fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered and sugared dome or cylinder mold.

  2. Place the mold in a steamer with boiling water halfway up the sides.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 40 minutes.

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. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  3. Orange + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the paste that thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air that lifts the pudding as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture to the pudding.
Milk
Hydrates the flour into a paste and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites; stirring hard deflates them, so the pudding bakes up less light and airy.

Swap the orange

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

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

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