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Dessert

Puddings and Dumplings

A cherry pudding made by baking a batter of eggs, milk, flour, butter, salt, baking powder, and cherries.

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 ↓

Puddings and Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg whites and yolks together until light.

  2. Add the milk and flour, and beat until smooth.

  3. Stir in the melted butter, salt, and baking powder.

  4. Drain the cherries, dredge them with flour, and fold them into the batter.

Steam the pudding

  1. Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Cover and place in a pot of boiling water.

  3. Boil continuously for three hours, replenishing the water as needed.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Provide structure and richness, setting the pudding as they cook.
All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure and, dusted on the cherries, helps keep them suspended.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a smooth consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and stays light.
Cherries
Add fruit acidity and sweetness, and moisture that bakes into the batter.

The step that matters

Keep the pot boiling for the full three hours. Steaming needs steady, continuous heat to cook the batter through evenly. If the water drops or stops boiling, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy or underdone in the centre.

“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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