Skip to main content
Dessert

Feather Pudding

A baked wheatmeal pudding served with apricot sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Feather Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the wheatmeal, salt, sugar, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the milk and beaten eggs, and beat the mixture steadily for 15 minutes.

  3. Pour the batter into a well-greased tin, filling it about three-quarters full.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 °F (175 °C) for 35 minutes.

  2. To make the apricot sauce, heat the apricot jam and water until very hot.

  3. Strain the sauce through a heated gravy strainer over and around the pudding before serving.

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. Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 help the pudding rise and set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Fine wheatmeal
Provides the flour structure that holds the pudding together.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the batter pours and bakes softly.
Apricot jam
Supplies sweetness and fruity flavour for the sauce.

The step that matters

Beating the batter for 15 minutes. Steady beating works air into the eggs and batter, which helps the pudding rise and become light. Under-beating can leave it dense.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

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

You might also like

Apricot Ice CreamApricot Ice Cream26 recipesMixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipes