Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Fruit Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Assemble the pudding
Butter and line a basin with pastry rolled to ½ inch thick.
Place half the gooseberries at the bottom of the basin.
Sprinkle half the sugar over the gooseberries.
Add the remaining gooseberries and top with the remaining sugar.
Cover with the pastry, sealing the edges well.
Boil and serve
Tie a cloth over the basin and boil in plenty of water for 1 hour.
Remove from the water, untie the cloth, and turn out onto a dish.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter and flour 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
- Gooseberries
- Provide the tart fruit filling that softens and becomes juicy as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart gooseberries and balances their acidity.
- All-purpose flour
- Gives the pastry its structure so it holds together during boiling.
The step that matters
Sealing the pastry edges. A tight seal keeps the gooseberry juice inside and stops boiling water from seeping in. This keeps the filling moist and the pastry from turning soggy.
“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.
More gooseberry pudding recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.