Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Minute Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the sugar and flour together.
Add the sour cream or buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Mix until smooth.
Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake and serve
Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
Serve with sauce.
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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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the cake as the batter sets.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the surface brown in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream or buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help the batter rise.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
The step that matters
Mixing the baking soda and acid. Baking soda needs an acid, here sour cream, buttermilk, and cream of tartar, to release carbon dioxide. Once the batter is mixed, the gas starts escaping, so it should go into the oven promptly to keep the 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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