Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint flour; ½ cup sugar; 3 tablespoons melted butter; ½ pint sweet milk; 1 egg; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine flour, sugar, melted butter, sweet milk, egg, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Stir the mixture well until smooth.

Steam and serve

Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.
Steam the pudding for 1 hour.
Serve with sauce.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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 main structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps it set firm during steaming.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Cream of tartar: Supplies acid that works with the baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Melted butter: Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to a soft, moist texture.

“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.