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Sponge Pudding to Boil

A layered pudding made with sponge cake, ratafia cakes, stone plums, milk, eggs, and brandy, baked in a butter‑greased mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Sponge Pudding to Boil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Grease your mold with butter.

  2. Stick stone plums around the inside of the mold.

Layer and pour

  1. Layer sliced sponge cake in the mold.

  2. Add a layer of ratafia cakes.

  3. Repeat layers until the mold is filled.

  4. Mix milk and beaten eggs, then pour over the layers.

  5. Add brandy or wine to the mixture.

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. Plum + brandytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together168 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Plum + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together406 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and set into a custard that holds the layers together.
Milk
Adds moisture so the sponge and ratafia cakes soften as the custard sets.
Sponge cake
Forms the soft body of the pudding, soaking up the milk and egg mixture.
Stone plums
Add tart fruit flavor and moisture against the mold walls.
Brandy or wine
Adds aroma and a boozy flavor to the custard.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, egg, brandy. 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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