Name: Marmalade Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup bread crumbs; 1 cup finely chopped suet; 3 eggs, well beaten; 2 tablespoons marmalade; 1 tablespoon cream; ⅓ cup brandy; white sugar for dusting

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Marmalade Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, suet, eggs, marmalade, cream, and brandy until well combined.
Butter a pudding mold and dust it with a little white sugar.
Pour the mixture into the prepared mold.

Steam

Steam the pudding 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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Bread + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together976 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,340 recipes

Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Bread crumbs: Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it steams.
Marmalade: Adds sweetness and bright citrus flavour with a touch of acidity.
Brandy: Adds aromatic flavour to the pudding.

“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.