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Dessert

White Puddings

A steamed sweet pudding made from egg whites, sugar, butter, milk, baking powder, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

White Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff.

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together in another bowl.

  3. Add the milk and baking powder to the butter mixture.

  4. Gradually mix in enough flour to form a stiff batter.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased mold and steam for 40 to 60 minutes.

  2. Serve with sauce, and consider adding chopped dates, figs, or other fruits for variation.

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. 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

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air that lifts the pudding and gives it a light texture.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter, it sweetens the pudding and helps create a soft texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise while it steams.
Flour
Forms the stiff batter structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring vigorously knocks out the air whipped into the egg whites, so the pudding turns dense instead of light. Folding gently 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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