Name: Chocolate Pudding
Ingredients: 1 egg; ½ cup sugar; ½ cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; flour (to make a stiff batter); 1½ squares chocolate; 2 tablespoons butter

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

Cream the egg with the sugar.
Add the milk and baking powder, then mix in enough flour to make a stiff batter.
Melt the chocolate with the butter and stir it into the batter.
Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

Cook and serve

Set the dish in a kettle of hot water and boil for 30 minutes.
Remove from the kettle and place in a 400°F (200°C) oven for two hours or longer.
Serve with a clear vanilla-flavored sauce.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg: Binds the batter and adds structure as it cooks.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the pudding so it rises and turns light.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the stiff batter together.
Chocolate: Gives the pudding its chocolate flavor and color.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a moist, tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps it cream with the egg.

“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.