Name: Batter Pudding
Ingredients: 1 egg; 1 cup sugar; 2 tablespoons Cottolene; ½ cup raisins; 2½ cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder

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 ↓

Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the sugar and Cottolene.
Stir in the raisins, flour, and baking powder until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam for 1 hour.
Serve with 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 sets during steaming.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the pudding as the batter cooks.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises and stays light.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and adds moisture to the batter.
Cottolene: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Raisins: Add pockets of sweetness and chew 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.