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Dessert

Madeira Puddings

Madeira pudding is a small baked dessert with a buttery, sweet batter and a light sauce made from butter, sugar, egg, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk 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 ↓

Madeira Puddings

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in the vanilla extract.

  5. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then gradually add to the mixture.

  6. If the batter is too stiff, add 1 tablespoon of milk.

Bake and make the sauce

  1. Pour the batter into small molds, filling them half full.

  2. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

  3. For the sauce, beat together 1½ tablespoons of butter, 4 tablespoons of sugar, and 1 egg until light.

  4. Just before serving, add boiling water to the sauce and mix well.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 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 and richness as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the pudding as its starch sets during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, and creamed with sugar it traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, creamed with butter, helps give a light, fluffy texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water to the sauce just before serving. Boiling water must be added at the last moment so the sauce stays warm and smooth; if it sits, the mixture can separate or cool and thicken unevenly.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, butter, sugar, milk, sauce):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, butter, sugar, milk, 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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