Name: Bishop Whipple Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped nuts; 2-3 cups flour; 2 eggs; 1 cup chopped dates; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1½ cups sugar

Why it works: Nuts and dates work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 178 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bishop Whipple 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.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the chopped nuts, flour, chopped dates, baking powder, and sugar.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks together.
Combine the egg mixture with the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake and serve

Pour the batter into a biscuit pan and bake until golden.
Break into pieces while hot and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Serve cold with whipped cream.

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.

Nuts + datestop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together178 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Nuts + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + datestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together675 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add moisture and richness to the pudding.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the batter together after baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the oven so the batter rises and becomes lighter.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown during baking.
Chopped dates: Add moisture and natural sweetness to the baked pudding.