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Dessert

Catskill Mountain Pudding

A sweet milk-based pudding made with eggs, flour, butter, sugar, salt, and baking powder, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Catskill Mountain 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.

Mix and portion

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the sweet milk, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, salt, and baking powder until well combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into cups or a mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until set.

  2. Serve with a rich 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. Flour + buttertop 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. Flour + sugartop 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).

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

Eggs
Set on heating to give the pudding its structure and body.
Flour
Forms the starch and gluten framework that holds the pudding together.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Sweet milk
Supplies liquid that moistens the batter and helps it set softly.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the crumb and gives a richer flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs firm as they heat, so overbaking makes the pudding dry, tough and rubbery. Pull it from the oven once the centre no longer wobbles, since it keeps setting as it cools.

“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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