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Dessert

Woodford Pudding

A baked pudding made with flour, sugar, butter, jam, baking soda, and sour milk, flavored with nutmeg or cinnamon.

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 ↓

Woodford 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, butter, jam, and sour milk.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk before adding it to the mixture.

  3. Flavor the mixture with nutmeg or cinnamon.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a baking dish and bake until done.

  2. Serve hot with 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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 starch and gluten structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, soft texture.
Jam or preserves
Adds sweetness, fruit flavor and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release gas, which lifts the pudding.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and a tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk first. Baking soda only produces lift when it meets acid. Dissolving it in the sour milk spreads the reaction evenly through the batter, giving an even rise and avoiding bitter, soapy pockets of undissolved soda.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, milk. 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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