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Dessert

Berlin Pudding

A baked or boiled pudding made from flour, milk, sugar, butter, salt, lemon peel, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Berlin Pudding

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 ↓

Berlin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a saucepan, mix flour with milk, sugar, and 1 oz. of butter.

  2. Simmer until it thickens.

  3. Beat 2 oz. of butter to a cream.

  4. Add a pinch of salt and the pounded lemon peel.

  5. Separate the eggs.

  6. Beat yolks and whites until frothy.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine the thickened milk with the butter mixture and beaten eggs just before baking.

  2. Bake the pudding until set, or boil if preferred.

  3. Serve with cherry or plum sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Flour
Thickens the milk into a set custard base as it simmers.
Eggs
Add structure and set the pudding when baked, and enrich its texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the pudding.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens with flour and sets with eggs.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the lemon peel.

The step that matters

Combine the thickened milk with the butter mixture and beaten eggs just before baking. Eggs begin to set when heated, so adding them to a hot mixture too early can scramble them. Combining just before baking keeps the batter smooth and lets it set evenly in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, butter, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, butter, 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.

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