Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Baked Flour 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the buttermilk, cream, eggs, and baking soda.
Add flour gradually until you achieve a thin batter consistency.
Bake and serve
Butter a pudding dish and pour the batter into it.
Bake until done, about 30-40 minutes.
Serve hot with a sauce or cream and sugar.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together674 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).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Buttermilk
- Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds tang.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the pudding rise.
- Flour
- Adds starch that thickens the batter and gives the baked pudding body.
- Cream
- Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the pudding.
The step that matters
Adding the flour gradually. Flour must be stirred in slowly so it hydrates evenly without lumps, reaching a thin batter. Too much flour at once makes the pudding dense and heavy, since starch thickens the mixture and limits how far it rises.
“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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