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Dessert

Whortleberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, eggs, flour, and whortleberries, served with wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the milk, eggs, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  2. Gently fold in the whortleberries.

Boil and serve

  1. Dust a cloth with flour, place the mixture inside, and tie it securely.

  2. Boil the pudding for 2.5 hours.

  3. Serve with wine 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  5. Milk + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

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

Milk
Adds liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the body of the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the starch structure that holds the stiff batter together.
Whortleberries
Supply the main fruit flavour and juices that moisten the pudding.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whortleberries. Overmixing a flour batter develops gluten, which makes the pudding tough and dense. Folding gently keeps the batter light and stops the berries from breaking down and staining it unevenly.

“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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