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Dessert

Whortleberry Pudding

A steamed pudding made with milk, bread crumbs, flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, and whortleberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine milk, bread crumbs, flour, baking powder, salt, and eggs in a bowl to make a stiff batter.

  2. Fold in the whortleberries gently.

Steam

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered tin boiler.

  2. Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure that holds the stiff batter together as it steams.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set as they cook, giving the pudding a firm, tender body.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Bread crumbs
Absorb milk and add softness, giving the batter a tender crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and hydrates the flour and crumbs to form the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the whortleberries gently. Vigorous stirring develops gluten in the flour and deflates the batter, making the pudding dense. Gentle folding keeps the air from the leavening intact and spreads the berries evenly without crushing them into the batter.

“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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