Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: ½ cup suet, chopped fine; ½ cup sugar; 1 cup flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 2 eggs; spice to taste; 1 cup fruit; ½ cup milk

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine suet, sugar, flour, baking powder, and spices.
Add eggs and milk, mixing until well combined.
Fold in the fruit.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Steam for 45 minutes.
Serve with 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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Flour: Forms the main structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set during steaming.
Suet: Adds fat that gives the pudding a moist, tender crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a soft texture.
Fruit: Adds moisture and sweet, fruity flavor 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.