Why it works: Milk and vanilla 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 ↓
Puff Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder.
Add milk or water to create a batter that is not too stiff.
Grease tea cups with butter.
Assemble and steam
Fill each cup with a layer of batter, then add your fruit, and top with another layer of batter.
Place the cups in a steamer with the lid on and steam for 30 minutes.
Make the sauce
For the sauce, beat icing sugar, butter, and boiling water together until creamy, then add vanilla flavoring.
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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,187 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
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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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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Flour
- Forms the bulk of the batter, giving the pudding its structure once cooked.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes light.
- Butter
- Greases the cups so the pudding releases cleanly, and enriches the sauce.
- Icing sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and dissolves readily into the creamy butter mixture.
The step that matters
Keep the batter not too stiff. A batter that is too stiff will not spread or expand well when baking powder releases gas, so the pudding may turn out dense rather than light.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter, sugar, sauce):
- Vanillathe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Figfits less well
- Coconutfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter, sugar, 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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