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Dessert

A Small Battee Pudding

A small steamed egg and milk pudding made in a teacup, served with sugar and optional wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Small Battee Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg with the flour and salt.

  2. Gradually add the milk, mixing vigorously until smooth.

Prepare for boiling

  1. Pour the batter into a greased teacup.

  2. Sprinkle a little flour on top and cover with a clean cloth.

  3. Gather the cloth tightly around the teacup and tie it securely with string.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately with sugar and a few drops of wine, if 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 helps it set into a firm, tender pudding as it cooks.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter sets into a solid pudding rather than staying liquid.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour and egg form a smooth, pourable batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the milk, mixing vigorously until smooth. Adding milk slowly while mixing keeps flour from clumping, so the batter becomes smooth and the pudding cooks 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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