Name: Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; 6 eggs, beaten light; 1 tablespoon good yeast; Milk, as needed to achieve bread-like consistency; ½ pound butter, softened; 1 grated nutmeg; 1½ pounds raisins, stoned and chopped

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 ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

1 pound all-purpose flour
6 eggs, beaten light
1 tablespoon good yeast
Milk, as needed to achieve bread-like consistency
½ pound butter, softened
1 grated nutmeg
1½ pounds raisins, stoned and chopped

Directions

Sift the flour and combine it with the beaten eggs before sunrise.
Add the yeast and enough milk to make a bread-like dough.
Let the mixture rise well, then knead in the softened butter.
Stir in the grated nutmeg and chopped raisins, ensuring the raisins are coated in a little flour to prevent sinking.
Wet a cloth, flour it, and tie it loosely over the pudding to allow it to rise.

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).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, milk, bread, butter, raisin):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Capersfits less well
Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, bread, butter, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.