Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the paste
Make a paste by rubbing the butter or suet into the flour and moisten it with water.
Line a well-buttered basin with the paste.
Assemble and boil
Add the picked cherries and cover with more paste.
Tie the basin in a cloth and boil it.
Alternatively, make a thicker batter pudding, stir in the cherries gently, tie in a cloth, and boil.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Butter or suet
- Fat that tenderises the paste and keeps it crumbly.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
- Cherries
- Supply fruit flavour and juices that moisten the pudding as it cooks.
The step that matters
Tying the basin in the cloth. A loose or poorly sealed cloth lets boiling water seep in and soak the paste, making the pudding soggy. The cloth should be secure but leave room for the pudding to swell as it cooks.
“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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