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Dessert

Railway Pudding

A pastry made from a thin dough rolled with jam and served with custard.

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 ↓

Railway Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, powdered sugar, butter, and baking powder.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then combine with the dry mixture.

  4. Add milk if the mixture is too thick.

Bake and roll

  1. Roll out the dough very thin on a floured surface.

  2. Bake on a baking sheet for 10 minutes.

  3. Spread jam over the baked dough and roll it up.

  4. Serve with boiled custard.

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 structure that holds the dough together when rolled.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat that gives the baked dough tenderness and flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and lightens.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a fine texture that dissolves easily into the batter.
Jam
Adds sweetness and moisture to the filling spread over the baked dough.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. A thin sheet bakes through quickly and stays flexible enough to roll up with jam. Thick dough can stay doughy in the centre and crack when rolled.

“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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