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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix together the sugar, milk, butter, and 1 egg.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake and frost
Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
While baking, beat the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Gradually add 1 cup of sugar to the egg whites, continuing to beat until glossy.
Frost the pudding immediately after baking.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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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).
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
- Provide structure and moisture, and help bind the batter together.
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the pudding's crumb together.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and tenderness, and stabilizes the whipped egg white frosting.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes it rise.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter and stabilizes whipped egg whites for a smoother frosting.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Underbeaten whites will not hold the frosting in shape, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy. Adding the sugar gradually helps the foam stay stable and glossy.
“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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