Name: Buckeye Pudding
Ingredients: 1 egg; ½ cup P. R. molasses; ⅓ cup cold water; 1 cup flour; 1 cup seeded raisins; 1 scant teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon cinnamon; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Buckeye Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine the egg, molasses, and cold water.
In another bowl, mix the flour, raisins, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.
Combine the wet and dry ingredients until well mixed.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Steam for 1½ hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,928 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets during steaming.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the pudding.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it rise.

“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.