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Dessert

Batter Pudding

A simple milk and flour pudding baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Batter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Once hot, add the butter and let it boil.

  3. Slowly stir in the flour and beat vigorously until it pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  4. Remove from heat and gradually stir in the well-beaten eggs.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and continue beating until the batter is smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

  2. Serve with hard 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. 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 starch structure that sets the batter and gives the pudding its body.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding structure, and add richness and lift.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter's base.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished pudding.

The step that matters

Beating in the flour. Beating the flour into the boiling milk until it pulls away from the pan cooks the starch and builds a smooth paste. Stirring in the eggs only after the paste has cooled slightly prevents them from scrambling.

“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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