Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 3 tablespoons melted butter; ¼ cup sweet milk; 1 egg; 1½ cups flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder

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 ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix together the sugar, melted butter, sweet milk, egg, flour, and baking powder until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish.

Steam and serve

Steam the pudding for 30 minutes.
Serve with whipped cream or 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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).

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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set firm when heated.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender, moist crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to a soft texture.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.

“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.