Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make a pie crust by mixing flour and baking powder.
Line a deep dish with the crust.
Assemble and bake
Fill the dish with the sweetened cherries and dust with flour.
Roll out a thick top crust and place it over the cherries.
Stew additional cherries to create extra juice if needed.
Bake until the crust is golden brown.
Add meringue and finish
Beat the egg whites with sugar to make a meringue.
Spread the meringue over the top and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes until light brown.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 structure of the crust and sets as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and stays tender.
- Sour cherries
- Provide tart fruit and juice that moisten and flavor the filling.
- Egg whites
- Whip with sugar into a meringue that sets and browns on top.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the meringue and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
The step that matters
Spread the meringue over the top and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes until light brown.. Meringue can weep, shrink or scorch quickly in a hot oven. Watching it closely for the short time needed keeps it glossy, tender and lightly coloured.
“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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