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Dessert

Cottage Pudding

A baked milk and flour pudding with butter, sugar, egg, and baking powder.

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 ↓

Cottage 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the egg and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a buttered pan and bake for 35 minutes.

  2. For individual puddings, use muffin pans and bake for 25 minutes.

  3. To vary the pudding, place sliced apples, stewed prunes, or cooked figs in the bottom of the dish before pouring the batter over.

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. Butter + flourtop 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the pudding a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give it structure as it sets.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the pudding rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.. Adding dry ingredients in portions and alternating with milk keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Overmixing once flour is added develops gluten, which can make the pudding tough.

“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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