Name: Railroad Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup suet; 4 cups flour; 1 cup raisins; 1 cup currants (or all raisins); 1 teaspoon baking soda; nutmeg (for flavor) or currant jelly (for flavor)

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Railroad Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

Warm the molasses and stir in the baking soda.
In a large bowl, combine the warm molasses, sweet milk, suet, flour, raisins, and currants.

Steam and serve

Pour the mixture into a steamer and steam for 4 hours.
Flavor the sauce with nutmeg or currant jelly before serving.
If there are leftovers, re-steam them before serving.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,577 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses: Adds dark sweetness and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it steams.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, flour, raisin, nutmeg):

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, flour, raisin, nutmeg. 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.