Name: Troy Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup raisins; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup suet, chopped; 1 cup milk; 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Troy Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a large bowl, combine raisins, molasses, suet, and milk.
Add flour and baking soda, and mix until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a mold or wrap in a pudding cloth.

Cook and serve

Boil for 3 hours.
Serve with sweet 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + molassestop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,155 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich during long cooking.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding's crumb.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and its acidity helps the baking soda react.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the pudding.

“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.