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Dessert

Pound Cake Pudding

A baked pound cake pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Pound Cake 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.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the milk and mix well.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and whites separately, then add them to the mixture.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the batter.

  6. Sift the flour with the cream of tartar and fold it into the mixture.

  7. Add the fruit and mix gently.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for one hour.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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 around the fruit as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that reacts with baking soda, supporting rise and a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps trap air when creamed with butter, aiding texture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the batter bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the milk before adding it to the batter. Baking soda needs moisture and an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it evenly in the milk spreads it through the batter so the rise is even and no bitter pockets form. Folding gently afterward keeps the air bubbles that help the cake lift.

“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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