Name: Buttermilk Pudding
Ingredients: 3 eggs; 3 cups buttermilk; 1½ cups sugar; 2 cups flour; ½ cup butter; 1 teaspoon baking soda; nutmeg (to taste)

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Buttermilk Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, beat the eggs.

Make the batter

Add buttermilk, sugar, flour, butter, baking soda, and nutmeg; mix well.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

Bake until golden brown, about 30-40 minutes.
Serve warm with 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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Buttermilk: Adds moisture and tang, and reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown during baking.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, buttermilk, sugar, flour, butter):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Jalapenofits about as well
Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, buttermilk, sugar, flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.