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Dessert

Black Sponge Pudding

A baked pudding made with eggs, butter, raspberry jam, flour, sugar, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Black Sponge Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the eggs, butter, raspberry jam, flour, and sugar together.

  2. Add the baking soda last and mix well.

Cook

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding mold.

  2. Boil for two hours.

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 + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during cooking.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich flavor and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the pudding its body.
Baking soda
Reacts to release gas that lifts the batter as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb soft.
Raspberry jam
Adds fruit sweetness, acidity, and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Add the baking soda last and mix well. Baking soda must be evenly distributed through the batter so it releases gas throughout, giving an even rise. Uneven mixing leads to pockets of uneven lift and texture.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe 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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