Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Another Whortleberry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Make a paste with the flour and half the butter.
Mix the paste with cold water.
Roll the paste out.
Dot the remaining butter on the rolled-out paste.
Sprinkle the paste with flour.
Roll the paste up twice.
Roll the paste out to ½ inch thick.
Cook and serve
Place a cloth over a bowl and lay the paste on it.
Fill the paste with as many berries as it can hold.
Tie the cloth tightly.
Place the wrapped paste in boiling water.
Boil for 2 hours.
Serve with a rich wine sauce.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the paste that holds the berries while it boils.
- Unsalted butter
- Adds richness and tenderness to the paste as it melts and layers through the dough.
- Cold water
- Binds the flour and butter into a workable paste without developing it too much.
- Whortleberries, blueberries or blackberries
- Provide the fruit flavor, sweetness and juice that fills the pudding.
The step that matters
Tie the cloth tightly. A loose cloth lets boiling water seep in and soak the filling, so the pudding turns soggy and can fall apart. A snug wrap keeps the berries enclosed while the paste cooks through.
“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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