Skip to main content
Dessert

Sutherland or Castle Puddings

A light, baked egg and flour pudding flavored with lemon rind or mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sutherland or Castle Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Whisk eggs for 10 minutes until very light.

  3. Gradually add sugar while continuing to whisk for 4-5 minutes.

  4. Sift in flour gradually and blend until smooth.

  5. Melt butter gently and add it in small portions, beating until fully incorporated.

  6. Add a pinch of salt and flavoring (lemon rind or mace).

Bake and serve

  1. Pour mixture into well-buttered cups.

  2. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden.

  3. Let cool before serving.

  4. Serve with wine 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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

Eggs
Whisked to a light foam, they give the pudding its airy structure as they set.
Butter
Adds richness and tender texture, and helps give the baked crumb its flavour.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets during baking, giving the pudding its body.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whisked eggs as it is added.

The step that matters

Beating in the butter. Melted butter must be added in small portions while beating so it emulsifies into the egg foam. Adding it all at once can deflate the foam and make the pudding heavy.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes