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Dessert

Batter Pudding

A baked batter pudding topped with fruit, made with buttermilk or sour cream, eggs, sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Batter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix buttermilk (or sour cream), baking soda, beaten eggs, sugar, and salt.

  3. Stir in flour until the batter is as thick as cake batter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a small baking pan and pour in half of the batter.

  2. Spread fruit over the batter, then add the remaining batter on top.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

  4. Serve hot with a rich sauce.

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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Buttermilk or sour cream
Adds acidity and moisture, giving the batter a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the buttermilk or sour cream to produce gas, helping the pudding rise.
Eggs
Provide structure and set the pudding as they cook.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch framework that gives the batter body and holds its shape.

The step that matters

Stir in flour until the batter is as thick as cake batter. Overmixing flour develops gluten, which makes the pudding tough and dense. Stir just until combined and check that the batter reaches the stated thickness.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

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