Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Beat eggs and mix in sweet milk.
Add baking powder and enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Gently fold in the cherries.
Cook and serve
Boil or steam for 2 hours.
Serve with fruit 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.
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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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 as the pudding sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter so the pudding rises and becomes light.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that give the pudding its body and firm structure.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and richness, loosening the flour into a batter.
- Cherries
- Add fruit flavour and moisture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the cherries. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour and deflates the batter, making the pudding dense and tough. Folding keeps the air from the baking powder and spreads the cherries evenly without crushing them.
“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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