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 ↓
Feather Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Grease six cups with butter.
Place fruit in the bottom of each cup.
Make and steam the pudding
In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, cold water, butter, baking powder, salt, and egg until smooth.
Pour the batter over the fruit.
Steam for 40 minutes.
Serve
Serve hot with milk or any sauce you like.
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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Sugar + flourtop 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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Provides the starch and structure that set the batter into a light, cake-like pudding.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and adds structure and richness as it sets during steaming.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and become light.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and contributes to browning and a tender crumb.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
The step that matters
Steam for 40 minutes. Steam must stay steady and the cups must remain covered so the batter cooks through evenly and rises without drying out. Lifting the lid early lets heat escape and can leave the center underset.
“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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