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Dessert

Berry Pudding

A baked pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, eggs, and berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Berry 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

Make the batter

  1. Add the milk and dissolved baking soda, mixing well.

  2. Sift in the cream of tartar and enough flour to create a stiff batter.

  3. Incorporate the eggs and berries into the mixture.

Cook

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Boil the pudding for two hours.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the batter.
Cream of tartar
Supplies the acid that activates the baking soda, helping the pudding rise.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the pudding together once set.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during cooking to give a firm, cohesive texture.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the batter and contributes richness and tenderness.
Berries
Add moisture, tartness and fruity flavor throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Sift in the cream of tartar and enough flour to create a stiff batter.. Baking soda and cream of tartar must react together to produce gas, and a stiff batter traps those bubbles so the pudding rises rather than collapsing.

“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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