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Dessert

A Cheap Batter Pudding

A simple pudding made by boiling a batter of milk, flour, eggs, and salt in a cloth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour 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 Cheap Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a large bowl, whisk the flour with a little salt until smooth and lump-free.

  2. Add the eggs and milk, mixing until well combined.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a cloth and tie it securely.

  2. Boil the pudding in a pot of water for 1 hour.

  3. Serve with your choice of 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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch that thickens and sets the batter into a firm pudding.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter into a pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Tying the cloth securely. If the cloth is loose, water can seep into the pudding and make it soggy, and the batter may escape. A snug, well-tied cloth keeps the pudding compact and moist while it boils.

“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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