Why it works: Peach and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 558 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Baked Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.
Roll the dough to a thickness of ¼ inch.
Assemble the pudding
Sweeten the fruit if desired.
Spread the sweetened fruit on the crust.
Roll the crust up.
Place the rolled crust in a pan.
Make the sauce and bake
In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar, flour, water, and vanilla or lemon essence to make the sauce.
Pour the sauce over the pudding.
Bake until done.
If the sauce bakes away, make more on the stove.
Serve hot.
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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Peach + vanillatop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together558 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough for the crust that wraps the fruit and holds its shape.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the crust rises and becomes lighter.
- Fruit
- Provides moisture and sweetness, and its juices soften the crust as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat to the sauce, giving it a smooth, rounded flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and sauce and helps the sauce brown and thicken as it cooks.
The step that matters
Make the sauce and bake. The sauce needs to be cooked smooth before it goes over the pudding, since flour thickens only when heated. If it bakes away, the pudding can dry out, so more sauce is needed.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, vanilla):
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Blueberryfits about as well
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, vanilla. 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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