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Dessert

Angel Puddings

A sweet baked batter made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and milk, served with lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Angel Puddings

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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a saucepan, combine the butter and milk, stirring over heat until the butter dissolves.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour and sugar, then pour the milk and butter mixture over them, stirring until smooth.

  4. Beat the eggs thoroughly and mix them into the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter some patty pans and fill each three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Bake until nicely browned.

  3. Remove from pans and arrange on a hot dish lined with a folded napkin or fancy paper.

  4. Dust with caster sugar and serve with cut lemons.

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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + sugartop 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).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and structure that hold the puddings together as they set.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture and flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking to give the puddings their structure.
Milk
Supplies moisture that turns the batter into a pourable mixture and steams as it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the eggs thoroughly. Well-beaten eggs mix evenly into the batter and trap air, which helps the puddings rise and keeps the texture light rather than 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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