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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A steamed dessert made from sugar, milk, flour, egg, salt, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sponge Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, milk, flour, egg, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  3. Steam for one hour until set.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
Egg
Helps bind the batter and sets it firm during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises and turns light.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter form a smooth, pourable mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the pudding's soft texture and browning.

The step that matters

Steam for one hour until set. Steaming gently cooks the egg and flour so the pudding sets evenly. Lifting the lid or letting the water boil dry can cause uneven or collapsed texture, so keep the steam steady and check that the pudding is firm before removing it.

“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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