Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Maple Pudding Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Rub the flour with the butter in a saucepan.
Pour the boiling water over the mixture, stirring until smooth.
Add a pinch of salt and the maple syrup.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + maple syruptop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,084 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + maple syruptop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,034 recipes
Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).
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
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it cooks with the butter and water.
- Butter
- Adds richness and smooth body to the sauce.
- Maple syrup
- Provides the sweetness and main flavour of the sauce.
The step that matters
Pour the boiling water over the mixture, stirring until smooth. Adding the water gradually while stirring keeps the flour from forming lumps. Smooth blending lets the starch disperse evenly so the sauce thickens uniformly when it boils.
“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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