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Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A custard-like dessert made with milk, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, maple sugar, water, and whipping 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

Make the batter

  1. Cream the flour and butter together.

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

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

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Bake in a water bath for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. For the sauce, boil the maple sugar and water until syrupy.

  3. 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
Whipped whites and yolks give the pudding its light, airy, custard-like structure as they set.
Butter
Creamed with the flour, it adds richness and a tender texture to the batter.
Flour
Creamed with the butter, it gives the pudding body so it holds its shape after baking.
Milk
Scalded and added to the batter, it provides moisture and helps set the custard structure.
Maple sugar
Boiled with water into a syrup, it provides sweetness and flavor for the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites and yolks after cooling. If the mixture is still hot, the beaten egg whites can deflate and lose the air that gives the pudding its lightness. Letting it cool first keeps the foam intact.

“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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