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Dessert

Saxon Pudding

A sweet, butter‑based pudding made with powdered sugar, flour, milk, and eggs, poached in a bain‑marie.

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 ↓

Saxon Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Work the butter to a pomade in a bowl.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and sifted flour, then dilute with the boiled milk.

  3. Boil the mixture while stirring, then dry it over high heat like a panada for pâte à choux.

  4. Remove from heat and thicken with the egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Carefully fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into well‑buttered molds and poach in a bain‑marie.

  3. Serve with English custard or a flavored Sabayon.

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. Flour + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the base.
Flour
Thickens the mixture and gives the pudding its body and structure.
Egg yolks
Thicken the base and add richness and set to the pudding.
Egg whites
Beaten into the mixture, they add air and lift for a light texture.
Milk
Provides moisture and softness, cooked into the base to form a smooth mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Beaten whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring them in vigorously or letting the mixture cool too much deflates the foam, leaving the pudding dense.

“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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