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Dessert

Boiled Batter Pudding

A boiled pudding made from flour, baking powder, butter, milk, eggs, and optional fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Boiled Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour and baking powder in a deep dish.

  2. Sprinkle in the salt.

  3. Add the melted butter.

  4. Gradually stir in the milk until smooth.

  5. Beat the egg yolks.

  6. Beat the egg whites.

  7. Add the beaten eggs to the mixture.

  8. Add enough more flour to make a very stiff batter.

  9. If desired, stir in a pint of berries or sliced fruit.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil for two hours.

  2. Serve with cream and sugar, wine sauce, or any sweet 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 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

Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the batter as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving it structure as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the batter so it rises and becomes lighter.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and makes the batter smooth.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavour.

The step that matters

Make a very stiff batter. Enough flour must be added so the batter is very stiff. A loose batter will not hold its shape when boiled and may turn out soggy or fall apart.

“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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