Cottage Pudding was a tremendously popular dessert in the second half of the 19th century. Apparently it was originally devised or published during the 1860s, with popularity growing until it appeared in the 1896 Fannie Farmer cookbook. As we have previously learned, “pudding” doesn’t necessarily mean the dish is a soft and squishy milk based product that most Americans think of when you say pudding. Pudding the word traces itself back to England and meant “dessert” in a general sense. So, a pudding could have been any sort of dessert brought to a table after a meal.

From what I can find, cottage pudding is a cake-like dessert, but one that needs a sauce to make it more enjoyable. The cake itself can be quite dense, but the addition of a sauce (most commonly chocolate or lemon), makes the cake become a soft and mushy treat. I will have to try this recipe. There isn’t a sauce with it, so you can add any sauce you like.

The name “cottage pudding” should also tell us that this is a recipe for every day people. Cottage meals were considered to be easier, made with ingredients common to hand, and could be found in nearly every cottage or farmhouse. The amount of butter varies widely from recipe to recipe and may be based on what the person had available to them. While this page of the book crumbled and I can’t see how much butter was called for, commonly it’s between 2 T to 1/4 pound (8 T).

Cottage Pudding

2 tbsp butter

1 c milk

1/2 c sugar

2 1/2 c flour

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

Cream the butter, add the sugar gradually & egg well beaten. Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt, add alternately with milk to first mixture. Turn into a buttered cake pan & bak 35 min. Serve with a sauce.