Name: Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound suet; 1 pound flour; 1 pound currants; 1 pound stoned raisins; rind of 1 lemon, finely chopped; 4 eggs; ⅓ cup brandy; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup sweet milk

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, mix the suet, flour, currants, raisins, lemon rind, eggs, brandy, salt, and sweet milk.
Stir until the mixture reaches a proper consistency.
Place the mixture in a flowered cloth and tie it securely.
Boil the pudding in water for 12 hours.
Serve with sweet sauce and ignite with brandy before bringing to the table.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Raisin + brandytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,768 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, currant, raisin, egg, brandy, milk):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, currant, raisin, egg, brandy, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.