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Dessert

Berry Pudding

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

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 ↓

Berry 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift the baking powder into the flour and stir it into the mixture.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Gently add the berries and pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with a hot 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. 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg whites
Beaten whites trap air, helping the pudding rise and giving it a light texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing it to rise and become lighter in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and contributes richness to the pudding.
Sugar
Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help build a tender texture.
Berries
Add moisture, tartness, and fruit flavor as they bake into the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stirring too vigorously deflates the air trapped in the whites, so the pudding loses lift. Fold gently with a spatula to keep the batter airy.

“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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