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Dessert

Batter and Fruit Pudding

A baked fruit pudding made from a batter of flour, milk, eggs, butter, and fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 and Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the flour and salt.

  2. Gradually stir in the milk until the mixture is liquid.

  3. Beat the batter with a spoon to make it lighter.

  4. Break one egg into a cup, then add it to the batter, mixing well.

  5. Repeat with the second egg, ensuring it is thoroughly mixed.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a 1½ pint pie dish with butter.

  2. Pour the batter into the pie dish.

  3. Clean the fruit with a cloth and sprinkle it into the batter.

  4. Dot the top with a few pieces of butter.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and rise into a light, tender body.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter so it bakes moist and tender.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender crumb and browning on top.
Fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness and tartness, flavouring the pudding as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the batter and adding the eggs. Thorough mixing distributes the eggs and air evenly through the batter, so the pudding rises lightly and bakes without dense pockets or streaks of unmixed egg.

“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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