Name: Puff Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; ¾ cup butter; 2 cups sugar; 3 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup milk; 1 teaspoon lemon extract; ½ nutmeg, grated; 4 eggs (reserve 2 egg whites for frosting); powdered sugar (for frosting)

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Puff Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Mix the flour, butter, and sugar in a large bowl.
Dissolve the baking powder in the milk and add the lemon extract and grated nutmeg.
Beat the 2 whole eggs thoroughly and mix them into the flour mixture.
Combine all ingredients and pour into a baking dish.

Bake and frost

Bake in the preheated oven until done.
For frosting, beat the reserved egg whites and gradually add powdered sugar until well combined.
Frost the top of the pudding with the egg white mixture.

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.

Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas as it heats, helping the pudding rise.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps it brown at the surface.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, milk, nutmeg, egg):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, milk, nutmeg, egg. 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.