Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Marlborough Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Beat the butter to a cream.
Stir in the powdered sugar.
Whisk the eggs and add them to the mixture.
Assemble and bake
Line a dish with puff pastry.
Spread a layer of jam over the pastry.
Pour in the mixture and bake for 1 hour.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the filling a rich, tender texture.
- Powdered lump sugar
- Sweetens the filling and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
- Eggs
- Bind the filling and set during baking to give it a custard-like structure.
- Puff-paste
- Forms a crisp, flaky crust that holds the filling in the dish.
- Jam
- Adds fruity sweetness and aroma in a layer beneath the filling.
The step that matters
Beat the butter to a cream. Beating the butter until light and fluffy traps air that gives the filling lift and a smooth texture. Under-beaten butter leaves a dense, greasy filling after baking.
“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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