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 ↓
Cottage Pudding
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the milk and melted butter.
In another bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.
Bake and serve
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Serve warm with your choice of 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,787 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Forms the structure of the cake as its starch sets during baking.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so it reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the crumb.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a rich flavour.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding the dry ingredients slowly and stirring until just smooth keeps the batter evenly mixed, so the leavening reacts uniformly. Overmixing develops gluten and can make the cake 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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