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Dessert

Batter Pudding

A baked milk and flour pudding with butter, eggs, and salt, served with sauce or fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Batter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour with a small quantity of cold milk.

  2. Heat the remaining milk and pour it onto the flour, stirring well.

  3. Add the butter, eggs, and salt, then beat the mixture well.

  4. Pour the batter into a buttered pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Serve with sweet sauce, wine sauce, or stewed fruit.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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
Starch that thickens the milk and gives the batter its body as it sets.
Eggs
Set with the heat to give the pudding structure and a tender, custardy crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer texture, and keeps the pudding from sticking to the dish.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and makes the batter pourable and moist.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot milk onto the flour. Stirring the hot milk in well while pouring keeps the starch dispersed, so the batter stays smooth instead of forming lumps that would not cook out evenly.

“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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