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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A baked pudding made with milk, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, maple syrup, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and flour together.

  2. Add the scalded milk and sugar to the mixture.

  3. After cooling, fold in the beaten egg whites and yolks.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pour the mixture into a pan and place it in a larger pan of water.

  3. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, boil the maple sugar and water until it forms a syrup.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the whipped cream.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs
Set the structure and add richness as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the base and gives the pudding its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softens the set texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize its crumb.
Maple sugar
Sweetens the sauce and gives it a maple flavor.

The step that matters

Place the pan in a larger pan of water. A water bath moderates the oven's heat, so the egg-rich mixture sets gently and evenly without curdling, cracking or drying at the edges.

“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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