Name: Swedish Pudding
Ingredients: ½ cup molasses; ½ cup sweet milk; ½ cup raisins or dates, stoned and washed; 1 egg; 1 cup flour; 2 tablespoons melted butter; ½ teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Swedish Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

In a bowl, combine molasses, sweet milk, raisins or dates, egg, flour, melted butter, and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into cups or molds.
Steam for 30 minutes.

Make the sauce and serve

For the sauce, mix ½ cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons flour, ½ cup butter, and ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg.
Add enough boiling water to achieve a creamy consistency.
Serve with the following 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 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).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Molasses: Adds sweetness and a dark, rich flavor to the batter.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps set the pudding as it steams.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Melted butter: Adds fat for moistness and a 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.