Skip to main content
Dessert

Sponge Pudding

A baked pudding made from flour, milk, butter, sugar, egg yolks and whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Sponge 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.

Make the custard base

  1. Stir the flour into the milk until smooth.

  2. Set the mixture in boiling water.

  3. Stir constantly until the flour is well cooked.

  4. Add the melted butter, sugar, and beaten egg yolks. Mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites until stiff.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered tin dish.

  3. Place the tin dish in a dripping pan of boiling water.

  4. Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  5. Serve with sugar and cream or 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. Coffee + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  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
Cooked with the milk, it thickens the base so the pudding holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, adding moisture and softness to the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a tender custard.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air and lighten the pudding as it rises.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps tenderize the texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Stir the flour into the milk and cook it until well cooked. Flour must be fully cooked in the hot liquid so its starch swells and thickens the base; undercooked flour leaves a raw, pasty taste and a weak structure.

“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.

More sponge pudding recipes

Steamed 7Chocolate 4Treacle 3 See all 120 →

You might also like

Coffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipesCoffee CustardCoffee Custard27 recipesCoffee CakeCoffee Cake21 recipesCoffee Bavarian CreamCoffee Bavarian Cream14 recipes