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Dessert

Baked Batter Puddings

A simple baked pudding made from flour, eggs, water, and butter.

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 ↓

Baked Batter Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Add the flour to a clean pan.

  2. Beat the eggs with salt until well mixed.

  3. Add water to the egg mixture and mix well.

  4. Strain about ½ cup of the mixture through a sieve onto the flour and mix until smooth.

  5. Gradually strain the remaining egg and water mixture onto the flour, mixing continuously with a wooden spoon.

  6. Beat the batter for an additional 15 minutes until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a baking dish and pour the batter into it.

  2. Dot the top with small pieces of butter.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

Fine flour
Provides the starch and structure that the batter sets around as it bakes.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the batter and give the pudding its rise and body.
Water
Thins the egg mixture so the batter pours smoothly and steam helps it puff.
Butter
Melts over the top during baking, adding richness and promoting browning.

The step that matters

Straining and beating the batter smooth. Adding the liquid gradually through a sieve while mixing prevents lumps, because dry flour clumps when liquid hits it all at once. A smooth batter bakes evenly and rises more uniformly.

“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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