Name: Blackberry Pudding
Ingredients: ½ cup flour; ½ teaspoon baking powder; a large pinch of salt; 2 teaspoons butter; ¼ cup milk; blackberries

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Blackberry Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

Mix flour, baking powder, and salt; sift several times.
Cut in butter with a knife.
Add milk to create a soft mixture.
Spread mixture in a baking dish or cake mold.

Cook and serve

Cover with a thick layer of blackberries.
Steam for 30 minutes or bake covered in the oven at 350°F (175°C).
Serve with sugar and cream or creamy hard 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.

Butter + milktop 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).
Flour + milktop 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

Flour: Forms the main structure of the pudding as it sets.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns light.
Butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a richer flavor.
Milk: Moistens the flour so it forms a soft, workable mixture.
Blackberries: Provide juicy fruit that sweetens and flavors the pudding as it cooks.

“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.