Name: Baked Batter Pudding, with or Without Fruit
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons dried flour; ¾ pint cold milk; ¾ pint boiling milk; 3 ounces moist sugar; 2 eggs; Coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt') to taste; Currants, raisins, or fresh fruit (optional); 1 ounce sugar (if using fresh fruit)

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 ↓

Baked Batter Pudding, with or Without Fruit

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

Mix the flour with ¾ pint of cold milk until smooth.
Add ¾ pint of boiling milk and 3 ounces of sugar, then boil for 10 minutes while stirring constantly.
Let the mixture cool, then add 2 well-beaten eggs.

Bake

Grease a pie dish, pour in the mixture, and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.
If using fresh fruit, add 1 ounce of sugar and bake for 1 hour.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Dried flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth, set batter as it cooks.
Milk: Provides the liquid that the flour thickens and that sets into a custard-like pudding.
Eggs: Set during baking to give the pudding structure and a tender, custardy body.
Moist sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Boiling the milk-flour mixture. The flour starch must be cooked while stirring constantly; otherwise it can clump and stay raw-tasting, and the mixture may scorch on the base of the pan.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, egg):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

Red Currant Jelly65 recipes

Currant Ice Cream32 recipes

Currant Sherbet9 recipes

Currant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes

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Baked Batter Pudding, with or Without Fruit