Skip to main content
Dessert

Railway Pudding

A small baked pudding rolled with jam, made from eggs, butter, flour, sugar, milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Railway Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) and grease a tin.

  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  3. Separate the egg whites and yolks.

  4. Beat the yolks and add to the butter and sugar mixture.

Bake and roll

  1. Stir in the flour, then gently fold in the whisked egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 6 to 8 minutes.

  3. Warm some jam in a small saucepan.

  4. Quickly turn the pudding out onto a paper sprinkled with caster sugar.

  5. Spread the warm jam over the pudding and roll it up.

  6. Serve hot or cold.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Whipped whites give the sponge its light, airy structure, and the yolks add richness.
Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender, moist crumb.
Flour
Sets the structure of the sponge as it bakes, holding the rolled shape.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the sponge and, creamed with butter, helps it rise lightly.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, and its moisture keeps the filling soft.

The step that matters

Quickly turn the pudding out and roll it up. The sponge is hot and most flexible right after baking. As it cools it stiffens and can crack when rolled, so it must be turned out and rolled promptly.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes