Name: Steamed Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups sweet milk; 2 tablespoons butter; 2 eggs; 3 cups flour; 3 teaspoons baking powder; berries of choice; cream; sugar

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix sweet milk, butter, eggs, flour, and baking powder to form a batter.

Steam and serve

Butter some cups and place them in a steamer over boiling water.
Fill the cups two-thirds full with batter and add berries.
Cover the steamer and steam for 30 minutes.
Serve with cream and sugar.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure to the steamed pudding.
Flour: Forms the main structure of the batter as it sets.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise while steaming.
Butter: Adds richness and flavor, and keeps the cups from sticking.
Sweet milk: Provides moisture and helps form a smooth batter.

“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.