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 ↓
Cottage 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and sweet milk, mixing well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve warm with a liquid sauce.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter into a tender crumb as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that reacts with the baking soda, helping the cake rise and stay tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the sugar cream into the batter.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps create a tender texture when creamed with butter.
The step that matters
Stirring the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Adding the flour mixture gradually and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter from being overmixed. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.
“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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