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Chocolate Sponge Pudding

A steamed chocolate sponge pudding with whipped cream and chopped almonds filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Sponge Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together lightly.

  2. Add the milk, grated chocolate, and baking powder.

  3. Sift in the flour and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a mold and fill it two-thirds full with the mixture.

  2. Steam for 45 minutes.

  3. Turn out the pudding and cover with chocolate sauce.

  4. Fill the center with whipped cream and chopped almonds.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Stiffly beaten whites trap air, giving the pudding a light, airy sponge texture.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the batter while adding color and flavor.
Flour
Provides the starch structure that sets the sponge once steamed.
Baking powder
Releases gas during steaming, helping the pudding rise and stay tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a soft, tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that makes the sponge light. Folding gently with a spatula keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the batter and yields a dense pudding.

“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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