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 ↓
Marmalade Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat the butter until creamy.
Add the flour, brown sugar, and baking soda; mix well.
Stir in the marmalade, then add the eggs and combine thoroughly.
Steam and serve
Pour the mixture into a buttered mold and steam or boil for 2 hours.
Turn out the pudding, sprinkle with sugar, and serve with sweet sauce.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set the pudding's structure as it cooks.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten framework that gives the pudding its body.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, making the pudding tender and moist.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and deepens the flavour.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in the marmalade to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Marmalade
- Adds bright acidity and citrus aroma that cut through the richness.
The step that matters
Steaming the pudding for 2 hours. Steam must keep the mold surrounded by steady, gentle heat for the full time. If the water boils dry or the mold is not sealed, the pudding can dry out or cook unevenly, and it will not set properly in the centre.
“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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