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 ↓
Currant 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the batter
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the water.
Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.
Fold in the baking powder and dried currants.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake for about 30-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender crumb when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping the pudding set as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, contributing tenderness and flavor to the batter.
- Flour
- Forms the stiff batter's structure, setting as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise and become light.
- Dried currants
- Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Folding in the baking powder. Baking powder starts releasing gas once wet and is most effective when baked soon after mixing. Folding gently keeps the batter airy, so the pudding rises evenly rather than going flat or dense.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, butter, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, flour. 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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