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Dessert

Sutherland or Castle Puddings

A light, airy pudding made from eggs, butter, flour, sugar, and optional lemon zest or mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sutherland or Castle Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs for 10 minutes until very light.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while whisking for another 4-5 minutes.

  3. Sift in the flour gradually and blend until smooth.

  4. Melt the butter gently and add it in small portions, beating until fully incorporated.

  5. Add a pinch of salt and lemon zest or mace if desired.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered cups.

  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.

  3. Let cool before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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
Whisked to a light foam, they give the pudding its structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter stay smooth when added gradually.
Flour
Provides structure, so the batter sets firm rather than staying loose after baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the whisked egg foam.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs and sugar. The eggs must be whisked until very light, because the trapped air is what lifts the pudding. Under-whisking leaves it dense, and adding the butter too quickly can deflate the foam.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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