Name: Berry or Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart flour; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 tablespoons shortening; Milk or water (as needed); Berries or fruit (any kind)

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 ↓

Berry or Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
Rub in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
Add milk or water gradually to form a soft dough.

Fill and steam

Roll out the dough thinly and spread with your choice of berries or fruit.
Roll the dough up in a cloth and place it in a steamer.
Steam until cooked through and serve with lemon 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).

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 of the dough as it sets during steaming.
Baking soda: Adds lift so the dough rises and becomes lighter.
Baking powder: Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise and turn soft.
Shortening: Coats flour particles to tenderise the dough and keep it from toughening.
Berries or fruit: Add moisture, sweetness, and flavour inside the rolled pudding.

The step that matters

Add milk or water gradually to form a soft dough. Adding liquid slowly lets you stop once the dough is soft. Too much liquid or overworking develops gluten and makes the pudding dense and tough.

“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.

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Berry or Fruit Pudding