Name: March Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ½ cup butter; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1 cup molasses; ½ teaspoon cloves; 4 apples; ½ cup butter (for sauce); 1 cup sugar (for sauce)

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

March Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Wash and soak the apples overnight, then cut them finely.
Combine the soaked apple water, molasses, and spices in a bowl.
In another bowl, mix the egg, butter, and flour together.
Stir the baking soda into the apple and molasses mixture.
Add the flour mixture to the apple mixture and bake immediately.
For the sauce, beat together ½ cup butter and 1 cup sugar until smooth, then flavor to taste.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, cinnamon, molasses, clove, sauce, sugar):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

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