Skip to main content
Dessert

Sago Pudding

A baked pudding made with sago, milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla, served hot with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Sago 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.

Prepare

  1. Cook sago in a double boiler with milk until tender.

  2. In a bowl, combine scalded milk, cooked sago, salt, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  2. Flavor with vanilla.

  3. Fold in beaten egg whites.

  4. Return to the oven and brown again.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with cream.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Sago
Swells and thickens with the milk as it cooks, giving the pudding its body.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they trap air that lightens the pudding and helps it rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that cooks the sago and gives the pudding moisture and softness.

The step that matters

Fold in beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles in the whites intact, which is what lightens the pudding. Stirring or beating the mixture after this point knocks out that air and leaves a dense result.

“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.

More sago pudding recipes

Apple 54Currant 3 See all 218 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes