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Dessert

Boiled Batter Pudding

A steamed or boiled pudding made from flour, milk, eggs, baking soda, and salt, served hot with sweet or savory accompaniments.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Boiled Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a deep dish, combine the flour and gradually mix in the milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the egg yolks, salt, and dissolved baking soda, and stir well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until fully incorporated.

Boil and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture into a prepared bag or cloth, leaving room for expansion.

  2. Boil for two hours.

  3. Serve hot with syrup, butter, sugar, or a hot 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and milk 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 bulk and structure of the pudding as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, with the whipped whites, add lift and a tender set.
Milk
Hydrates the flour into a batter and adds richness and moisture.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the batter and help it rise as it cooks.

The step that matters

Leave room for expansion in the bag or cloth. The batter rises and swells while boiling. If it is packed too tightly, it cannot expand, and the pudding can burst the bag or cook dense and heavy.

“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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