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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, milk, butter, sugar, eggs, baked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sponge 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.

Make the base

  1. In a large bowl, stir the flour into the milk until smooth.

  2. Place the mixture in a pot of boiling water and stir constantly until the flour is well cooked.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then add the melted butter, sugar, and beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Fill a roasting pan halfway with boiling water and place a buttered tin dish inside.

  3. Just before baking, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Pour the pudding mixture into the tin dish and bake for 45 minutes.

  5. Serve warm with sugar and cream or 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Cooked into a thickened base that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cooked flour thickens and sets into a custard-like texture.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the pudding; whites beaten to stiff peaks lighten it and help it rise.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks and folded in, trapping air that lightens the pudding as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the eggs and butter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lightens the pudding. Folding gently, and only just before baking, keeps that air from collapsing and the batter from deflating.

“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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