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 ↓
Sponge-cake Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Grease a mold with butter and decorate it with dried cherries or raisins.
Fill the mold three-quarters full with sponge cake.
Make and pour the custard
In a bowl, whisk together milk, eggs, and sugar.
Pour the custard mixture over the sponge cake.
Cook and serve
Boil or steam for 30 minutes.
Serve with wine sauce.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,155 recipes
Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard so it binds the sponge cake into a tender, sliceable pudding.
- Sponge cake
- Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it cooks.
- Milk
- Makes up the liquid base of the custard, keeping the pudding moist.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard and adds softness to the finished pudding.
Swap the raisin
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Coconutfits about as well
- Raisinthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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.
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