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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A sweet baked pudding made with powdered sugar, sweet milk, butter, eggs, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Cottage Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Rub the butter into the powdered sugar.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and sweet milk, then mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until light and fluffy, then fold them into the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking powder together, then gradually add to the batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered mold.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  3. Turn out onto a dish and serve with foamy 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. Milk + buttertop 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. Egg + flourtop 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

Eggs
Yolks add richness and moisture, while whipped whites lighten the batter and help it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake as it bakes and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing it to rise and become light and tender.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and blends smoothly with the butter for a fine texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender crumb.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the sugar.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when beaten to a light, fluffy foam. Stirring them in vigorously or folding too long deflates that air, which leads to a dense pudding.

“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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