Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the pudding
Scald the bread crusts or soft crackers in boiling milk.
Add the butter, salt, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon to the mixture.
Fold in the stoned cherries.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.
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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Bread crusts or soft crackers
- Soak up the hot milk to form a soft, tender base for the pudding.
- Eggs
- Set during baking to give the pudding its structure.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that soaks the bread and helps form a custard-like texture.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps keep the pudding tender.
- Stoned cherries
- Add fruit flavor and moisture throughout the pudding.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat for a softer, more tender crumb.
The step that matters
Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the middle, while overbaking can make it dry and rubbery.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar):
- Cinnamonthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Parsleyfits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, butter, sugar. 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.
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