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Dessert

Blueberry Pudding

A baked blueberry dessert with a fruit sauce.

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

Blueberry 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, milk, egg, and butter until well combined.

  3. Add flour and baking powder, then gently fold in the blueberries.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, boil 1 cup of blueberries in a little water.

  2. Press the cooked berries through a sieve to extract the juice.

  3. Thicken the juice with a little flour, then add butter, sugar, and salt to taste.

  4. Add a splash of lemon juice if desired.

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 + 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 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
Provides the starch and protein that build the cake's structure as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting it so the pudding rises and becomes light.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the pudding a tender texture and rich flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as the pudding bakes.

The step that matters

Thicken the juice with a little flour. Flour must be whisked smoothly into the juice and simmered, because starch only thickens fully when heated. Adding it unmixed or without heat leaves lumps or a thin sauce.

“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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