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Dessert

Dutch Pudding , or Sous Ter

A yeast‑leavened butter and milk batter with currants and sugar baked into a pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Dutch Pudding , or Sous Ter

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter in the milk.

  2. Mix the melted butter and milk into the flour.

  3. Add the eggs and yeast, then mix well.

  4. Fold in the currants and sugar.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 hour.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 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).

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set.
Yeast
Produces gas that makes the pudding rise and gives it a lighter crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries flavour through the batter.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and helps form the batter.
Currants
Add pockets of fruit sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Add the eggs and yeast, then mix well. Yeast needs to be evenly distributed through the batter so it can produce gas throughout. Thorough mixing also spreads the eggs evenly, so the pudding rises and sets uniformly instead of forming dense or uneven patches.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

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