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Dessert

A Cherry Batter Pudding

A pudding made with cherries and a batter of flour, sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

A Cherry Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Stone and pick the cherries, then place them in a buttered mold.

Make and pour the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla to create a smooth batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the cherries in the mold.

Cook and serve

  1. Cover the mold tightly and boil for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with a sweet 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.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Cherries
Provide the fruit that cooks within the pudding and gives it its main flavour.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter as its proteins set during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a firm, cohesive pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning at the surface.

The step that matters

Cover the mold tightly and boil for 1.5 hours. A tight cover traps steam so the batter cooks through evenly and stays moist. If the water or steam escapes, the top can dry out and the pudding may set unevenly.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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