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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A light, airy pudding made from flour, milk, eggs, butter, and sugar, baked in a water bath.

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 ↓

Sponge Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the base

  1. Mix the flour and sugar with a little cold milk.

  2. Scald the rest of the milk and stir the flour mixture into it.

  3. Cook for 8 minutes, stirring well.

  4. Add the butter and let it cool.

Finish and bake

  1. Once cool, add the beaten egg yolks.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Bake in buttered cups placed in a water bath at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

  4. Check for doneness with a straw; it should come out clean.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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

Flour
Thickens the milk mixture and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help set the pudding as it bakes.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they add air and lift for a light, spongy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs set.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender mouthfeel to the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its browning at the surface.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while intact. Vigorous stirring knocks out the foam, so the pudding bakes dense instead of light and spongy.

“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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