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Dessert

Batter Pudding

A simple boiled pudding made from egg, flour, milk, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Boil water in a saucepan until it is half full.

  2. In a bowl, combine flour and a pinch of salt.

  3. Add the egg to the flour and mix well.

  4. Gradually stir in the milk with a wooden spoon.

  5. Let the batter stand for 30 minutes.

Cook the pudding

  1. Grease a cup well with butter.

  2. Stir the batter and pour it into the greased cup.

  3. Soak a cloth in boiling water.

  4. Flour the soaked cloth.

  5. Tie the cloth over the cup with string.

  6. Place the cup in the saucepan.

  7. Boil for 45 minutes.

  8. Remove the cloth.

  9. Serve the pudding as desired.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during cooking.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding its body as it cooks.
Milk
Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the pudding a soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth over the cup with string. The cloth must be soaked and floured so it does not stick to the pudding, and it must be secured firmly so boiling water cannot enter the cup and the pudding can rise and set evenly.

“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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