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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A baked milk and flour pudding with butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, and optional fruit.

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 moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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 and bake the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the butter, milk, sugar, flour, egg, baking powder, and salt until well combined.

  2. Pour the batter into a buttered pan.

  3. Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Variations

  1. For individual puddings, pour the batter into muffin pans and bake for 25 minutes.

  2. To vary the pudding, place sliced apples, stewed prunes, or other fruit in the bottom of the dish before pouring the batter over.

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. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps set its structure during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the pudding rise and become light.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.. Underbaking leaves the centre wet and doughy because the egg and flour have not set. Overbaking dries the pudding, so checking with a toothpick helps hit the point where the structure is set but the crumb stays moist.

“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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