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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
Beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl.
Stir in the yolk of the egg.
Add the sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and salt, mixing until smooth.
Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then fold it into the batter.
Bake
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 25–30 minutes or until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Egg
- The yolk enriches the batter, and the whipped white adds lift and a light crumb.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cake's crumb once baked.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing it to rise and become light.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavour while creaming with the sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust while creaming air into the butter.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture so the batter mixes smooth and bakes tender.
The step that matters
Folding in the beaten egg white. Stiff egg whites trap air that expands in the oven. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter; stirring vigorously deflates it and leaves a dense cake.
“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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