Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Sponge Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the custard base
Wet the flour with part of the milk.
Cook the flour mixture in the milk for 10 minutes.
Add the butter and sugar while hot.
When cool, add the beaten yolks of the eggs.
Combine and bake
Gently fold in the whisked egg whites.
Pour the mixture into a 2-quart basin set in a pan of hot water.
Bake for 30 minutes.
Serve
Serve with cream for 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Flour
- Thickens the milk as its starch swells during cooking, giving the pudding body.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and set the pudding, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a tender, moist crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its soft texture.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid base that the flour thickens and the eggs set.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the whisked egg whites. Whisked whites trap air that gives the pudding its rise and lightness. Stirring vigorously deflates them, so the pudding bakes dense instead of light.
“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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