Name: Raisin Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound raisins; 1 pound sugar; ½ pound butter; 1 pound flour; 7 eggs, beaten separately; 1 pint milk or cream; ⅓ cup wine or brandy

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 ↓

Raisin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Grease and flour a pudding mold or bag.

Make and cook the pudding

In a large bowl, mix the raisins, sugar, butter, flour, beaten eggs, milk or cream, and wine or brandy until well combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared mold or bag.
Boil for 3 to 4 hours.

Serve

Serve with a rich 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).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Butter and flour 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 starch structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs: Set during cooking to bind the pudding and give it a tender, custardy body.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown slightly at the surface.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk, wine):

Vanillafits better
Raisinthe original
Figfits about as well
Peachfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg, milk, wine. 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.