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Dessert

Honey Comb Pudding

A steamed pudding made with flour, sugar, butter, milk, eggs, baking soda, and salt.

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 ↓

Honey Comb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and sugar.

  2. Add the melted butter and melted milk, and stir until combined.

  3. Incorporate the beaten eggs into the mixture.

  4. Finally, add the baking soda and salt, and mix well.

Steam and set

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for 1.5 hours until set.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 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).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Eggs
Set with gentle heat to bind the batter and give the pudding its firm body.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to a tender crumb and golden colour.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to produce gas that lightens and raises the pudding.

The step that matters

Steam until set. Steam gently and long enough for the eggs and flour to set fully. Underdone batter stays wet in the centre, while overheating can make the eggs curdle and the texture 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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