Name: Chester Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint flour; ½ cup sugar; 3 tablespoons melted butter; ½ pint milk; 1 egg; 1½ teaspoons baking powder

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 ↓

Chester Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Mix the flour, sugar, melted butter, milk, egg, and baking powder in a bowl until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for 1½ hours until cooked through.
Serve warm with your choice of sauce.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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

Flour: Provides the main structure that sets the pudding as it cooks.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set firm during steaming.
Baking powder: Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Milk: Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to a golden, tender crumb.

“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.