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Dessert

Cup Pudding

A small steamed pudding made with flour, milk, jam, and butter.

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 ↓

Cup Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Grease small cups with butter.

  2. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder into a bowl.

Make and fill the puddings

  1. Stir in the milk quickly until mixed evenly.

  2. Place a small amount of butter in each cup, spreading it up the sides to create a well.

  3. Add a large teaspoonful of jam into the well and cover with batter.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam for 35 minutes, then turn out and serve hot with cream or pudding 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. 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).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that set the batter into a light pudding.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, making the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and makes the batter soft enough to pour and spread over the jam.
Butter
Greases the cups and spreads up the sides, helping the pudding release and brown slightly.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour that cooks into the centre of each pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in the milk quickly until mixed evenly. Once liquid meets flour, gluten starts to form, and overmixing makes the pudding tough and dense. Mixing just until combined keeps the texture tender and light.

“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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