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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A sweet baked batter made with sugar, shortening, flour, baking powder, egg, and water, served with a flour‑sugar‑butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cottage Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream the shortening and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg without beating, then beat until creamy.

  4. Slowly add the water.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together.

  6. Add the sifted mixture to the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into one or two layers in a baking pan.

  2. Bake until the pudding shrinks from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix 3 tablespoons of flour with a little water to make a paste.

  2. Thicken 1 pint of hot water with the flour paste.

  3. Cook the mixture thoroughly.

  4. Add ½ cup sugar, 1 tablespoon butter, a pinch of salt, and nutmeg to taste.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 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. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Shortening
Adds fat that makes the crumb tender and rich.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter hold together as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake, and thickens the sauce when heated with liquid.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, lifting the batter so the pudding rises.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce thoroughly. Starch in the flour swells and thickens the liquid only when it is heated fully. Undercooked flour stays pasty and leaves a raw, floury taste, so the sauce should be cooked until smooth and thick.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Cinnamonfits about as well
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

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