Name: Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup raisins, chopped; 1 cup sweet milk; ½ cup butter, softened; 1 cup all-purpose flour; 2 large eggs, beaten; 1 cup granulated sugar; 5 large tart apples, chopped

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Fruit 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.

Prepare

Soak the chopped raisins in sweet milk and set aside.
Cream the softened butter and flour together.
Add the beaten eggs and granulated sugar to the mixture.
Stir in the soaked raisins and milk.
Fold in the chopped apples.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Serve warm with sweetened cream flavored with vanilla.

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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

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.
Eggs: Bind the batter and set during baking, giving the pudding its firm body.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness, plumped by soaking in milk.
Tart apples: Add moisture and acidity that balance the sugar and keep the pudding from tasting flat.
Sugar: Sweetens the batter and helps tenderize its texture.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.. The pudding sets as egg proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet in the center, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery. Checking for a firm, set center helps avoid both.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, milk, butter, flour, egg, sugar. 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.