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Dessert

Strawberry Pudding

A steamed cottage pudding made with sugar, butter, milk, flour, baking powder, egg, and strawberries, topped with a warm sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Strawberry Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Prepare a cottage pudding by mixing sugar, butter, sweet milk, flour, baking powder, and beaten egg.

  2. Steam the pudding for 1 hour.

Make the sauce

  1. Place a bowl over a gently boiling kettle for the sauce.

  2. Add sugar, butter, and an egg to the bowl, ensuring the steam does not cook the egg.

  3. Whip the mixture until frothy.

  4. Fold the mixture into the mashed strawberries.

  5. Keep the sauce warm over the kettle until serving.

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. Butter + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 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
Forms the structure of the pudding as its proteins set during steaming.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set the pudding's structure, and also enriches the sauce.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, lifting the pudding so it is light.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and the sauce and helps brown the surface.
Strawberries
Supply the main fruit flavour and a tangy acidity to the sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the egg from cooking in the sauce. Egg proteins set with heat, so over direct or excessive steam the egg can scramble and turn the sauce grainy. Holding the bowl over gently simmering water and whipping steadily keeps the sauce smooth and thick.

“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.

More strawberry pudding recipes

Sauce 6 See all 34 →

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