Name: Quick Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 small cup suet, chopped; 3 eggs, beaten; ½ cup sugar; ½ cup stoned raisins; bread crumbs from 1 loaf, grated

Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Quick Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Soften the suet and crumble the canned pudding.
Stone the raisins and grate the bread crumbs the night before.
In the morning, mix the suet, eggs, sugar, raisins, and bread crumbs.
Turn the mixture into a well-greased pudding mold.
Boil for 3 hours.
Serve with a rich, sweet 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.

Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Raisin + breadtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,111 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,556 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).