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 ↓
Cottage Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together until well combined.
Add the milk and mix thoroughly.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Finally, stir in the melted butter.
Steam and serve
Pour the batter into a greased steaming dish.
Steam for 1½ to 2 hours until cooked through.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the pudding as the starch sets.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Cream of tartar
- Provides acid that activates the baking soda, helping the pudding rise.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
The step that matters
Steam until cooked through. Steaming gently cooks the batter with moist heat, so the pudding sets without drying out. Stopping too early leaves the centre raw and dense, while the gas from the baking soda and cream of tartar is set in place by the heat.
“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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