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Dessert

Batter Pudding, Boiled

A steamed pudding made from a batter of cereal, flour, eggs, milk, and butter, served with brandy sauce.

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 ↓

Batter Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add the cerealine, beaten eggs, lemon extract, and milk; mix until smooth.

  3. Pour the batter into a well-buttered mold.

Steam and serve

  1. Place the mold in a saucepan with boiling water, filling it two-thirds up the sides of the mold.

  2. Steam for 1 hour and serve with brandy 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. 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. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and turns light.
Cerealine
Adds body and a soft, tender texture to the pudding.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Filling the saucepan with boiling water to two-thirds up the mold. The steam-heated water must reach partway up the mold so the pudding cooks evenly through steam and heat. Too little water lets the pudding dry out or cook unevenly, while the mold needs room to avoid floating or boiling over.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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