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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A sweet baked pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, eggs, and vanilla, served with a vanilla sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cottage 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the cake

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

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

  3. Add the milk, flour, baking powder, eggs, and vanilla flavoring, then mix well.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  5. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, whisk together the egg, sugar, corn starch, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and add vanilla flavoring to the 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 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. Vanilla + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding's crumb together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the cake crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, pourable body.

The step that matters

Cook the sauce until thickened. Corn starch thickens only when the mixture reaches a simmer while being stirred. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin, and stirring constantly prevents the egg from scrambling or sticking to the pan.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, flour, sauce, corn. 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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