Skip to main content
Dessert

English Sago Pudding

A steamed pudding made from pearl sago, milk, butter, sugar, vanilla, eggs, frothy egg whites, and topped with jelly or jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

English Sago Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Wash the sago.

  2. Place the sago in a quart of milk.

  3. Let it stand on the heater until the sago swells.

  4. While hot, stir in the butter, sugar, and vanilla.

  5. Once cool, add the beaten egg yolks.

  6. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and top

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 to 45 minutes until set.

  2. Remove from the oven.

  3. Let cool.

  4. Beat the egg whites with 2 tablespoons of sugar until light and frothy.

  5. Spread jelly or jam over the pudding.

  6. Cover with the frothy egg whites.

  7. Return to the oven for a couple of minutes to brown.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Pearl sago
Swells in the hot milk to thicken and give the pudding its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sago swells in and the custard sets from.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a light froth that forms the topping and browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the frothy topping hold its shape.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks after the mixture cools. Yolks added to very hot mixture can scramble and turn grainy, so the sago mixture should cool slightly before they are stirred in and it is baked to set.

“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.

More sago pudding recipes

Apple 54Currant 3 See all 218 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes