Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Boiled Batter Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Grease a pudding basin that will be completely filled with batter and heat it.
Pour in the batter and sprinkle a little flour on top.
Tie a pudding cloth, previously soaked in boiling water and floured, securely over the basin.
Place the basin in a saucepan with plenty of boiling water and boil moderately fast for 1.5 hours.
Let the pudding stand for 2-3 minutes before turning it out.
Garnish with bright-colored jelly and serve with sweet 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
Swap the nutmeg
The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, butter, sugar, sauce):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits about as well
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, sugar, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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