Name: Amber Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound butter; ¼ pound flour; 6 tablespoons bread crumbs; sugar to taste; rind of 3 lemons, finely chopped; a pinch of salt; 3 eggs, well beaten

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Amber Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Beat the butter until creamy.
Mix in the flour, bread crumbs, sugar, lemon rind, salt, and beaten eggs.
Beat all ingredients together until well combined.

Fill and boil

Fill a buttered mold with the mixture.
Boil for 4 hours.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Flour + sugartop 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).

Butter and flour 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

Butter: Adds richness and tenderness, and is creamed to trap air for a lighter texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Eggs: Bind the mixture and set as it cooks, giving the pudding body.
Bread crumbs: Add bulk and absorb moisture, giving the pudding a softer, more tender crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly at the edges.
Lemon rind: Adds bright citrus aroma and flavor to the pudding.