Why it works: Buttermilk and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 129 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Cottage Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the batter
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the beaten eggs, buttermilk (or sour cream), and dissolved baking soda.
Stir in the vanilla extract and enough flour to make a stiff batter. Add the baking powder and mix well.
Bake and make the sauce
Pour the batter into a biscuit pan and bake until done.
For the caramel sauce, melt the sugar in a skillet until brown. Add the butter and flour, mixing well. Pour in the boiling water and let it boil for one hour.
Serve
Serve the pudding cut into squares, topped with the caramel sauce.
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.
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Buttermilk + saucetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together129 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps brown the crust and form the caramel sauce.
- Buttermilk or sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour cream to produce gas that raises the pudding.
- Baking powder
- Provides additional rising during baking.
The step that matters
Make the caramel sauce. Sugar melted in a skillet darkens quickly and can burn if left unattended, turning bitter. Watch the color closely until it is brown, then add the liquid carefully, since hot sugar can spatter.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, buttermilk, flour, sauce):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillathe original
- Lemonfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, buttermilk, flour, sauce. 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.
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