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Dessert

Plain Whortleberry Pudding

A simple pudding made with flour, egg, sweet milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and whortleberries, boiled for three hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Whortleberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg until frothy.

  2. Mix the frothy egg with the sweet milk.

  3. Stir in the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda until well combined.

  4. Gently fold in the whortleberries.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in a pudding cloth for three hours, turning often.

  2. Serve with vinegar or wine 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Flour and milk 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 starch and structure that gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Egg
Adds protein that binds the batter and helps it set as it cooks.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the batter cook into a tender texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Baking soda
Releases carbon dioxide when combined with acid, leavening the batter as it cooks.
Whortleberries
Add juicy sweetness, tartness and colour that show through the set pudding.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the whortleberries. Folding rather than stirring keeps the berries whole and avoids crushing them, which would release juice and streak the batter. Limiting the mixing also keeps the batter tender, since overworking flour develops gluten and makes a tougher pudding.

“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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