Name: Cabinet Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound raisins; ½ pound currants; ½ pound citron; cold butter; slices of cake

Why it works: Raisin and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,180 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, creamy. The science ↓

Cabinet Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Butter a smooth, plain mold thickly with cold butter.
Arrange the dried fruit in decorative shapes like wreaths or stars.
Layer slices of cake on top of the arranged fruit.

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.

Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,856 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Raisin + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,630 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).