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 ↓
Fkuit Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Mix milk, sugar, eggs, cream of tartar, baking soda, and enough flour to form a batter in a bowl.
Fold in dried fruit.
Pour the mixture into a pudding mold and steam for 2 hours.
Make the sauce
Heat 1 pint of milk with the butter until just below boiling for the sauce.
Reserve ½ cup of the pudding batter.
Thin the reserved batter with a little milk.
Stir the thinned batter into the hot milk.
Stir continuously until the sauce thickens.
Sweeten and flavor the sauce to taste.
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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Cream + buttertop 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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set the pudding's structure as it steams.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the batter so baking soda can react and lighten the pudding.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that makes the pudding rise.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it steams.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and adds tenderness to the crumb.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.
The step that matters
Stir the sauce continuously until it thickens. The batter starch in the hot milk can scorch on the bottom or form lumps if left unstirred, so constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth as it thickens.
“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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