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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A baked flour and sugar pudding with eggs, butter, milk, baking powder, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Cottage Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks and milk to the mixture.

  3. Sift the baking powder with the flour and add it to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites until well combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased round tin.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes, testing with a broom whisk; if it comes out dry, the pudding is done.

  2. Turn it out of the mold onto a piece of cut paper and serve with wine or brandy 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 + milktop 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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Eggs
Whites trapped by folding add lightness, while yolks add richness and help set the crumb.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to add fat, tenderness and a rich flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps create a tender, lightly browned crumb when creamed with butter.
Milk
Adds moisture to the batter and helps it bake into a soft, tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air that gives the pudding its lift. Stirring them in vigorously or letting them deflate before baking leads to a dense, heavy result, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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