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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A light, fluffy dessert made from sugar, butter, milk, eggs, and leavening agents, baked or boiled to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sponge 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

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

  2. Prepare a pot for boiling.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the cream of tartar and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined.

  5. If desired, fold in fruit.

Bake or boil

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish or mold.

  2. Bake for 1 hour or boil for 1 hour until set.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, creamed with butter, helps give the pudding a light texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, adding tenderness and richness to the pudding.
Eggs
Add structure as they set, holding the pudding together and giving it body.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour-free batter can mix and set evenly.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the pudding rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release carbon dioxide, lightening the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until just combined.. The cream of tartar and baking soda start producing gas once they meet liquid, so the batter should be mixed only until combined and baked promptly. Overmixing can toughen the texture and release rising power early.

“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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