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Dessert

Batter Pudding

A steamed pudding made from a stiff batter of sugar, butter, eggs, milk, baking powder, and flour.

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

Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Add eggs and milk, and mix well.

  3. Stir in baking powder and enough flour to achieve a stiff batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 2 hours.

  3. Serve with rice 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as the starch sets with heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the wet batter so the pudding rises and turns light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and a softer texture.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and makes the batter pourable.

The step that matters

Stiff batter. Enough flour must be stirred in to make a stiff batter. A thick batter holds the gas from the baking powder, so the pudding rises and keeps its shape. A thin batter lets gas escape and gives a dense, heavy result.

“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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