Name: Steamed Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: 2 eggs, well beaten; 1 cup sweet milk; Sifted flour, enough to make a stiff batter; ½ cup sugar; 1 tablespoon melted butter; 2 teaspoons baking powder; ¼ teaspoon salt; Cherries, as many as can be stirred in

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 ↓

Steamed Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs and sweet milk.
Add sifted flour until you achieve a stiff batter.
Mix in the sugar, melted butter, baking powder, salt, and cherries.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Steam and make the sauce

Steam for 1 hour without removing the lid.
To make the sweet sauce, boil 1 cup granulated sugar, ½ cup water, and a walnut‑sized piece of butter until syrupy.
Flavor the sauce with lemon or vanilla 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure as they set during steaming.
Flour: Forms the stiff batter that gives the pudding its body.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding rises and stays light.
Butter: Adds richness and a tender texture to the crumb.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps browning and flavour.

The step that matters

Steam without removing the lid. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and the temperature drop, which can stop the batter rising and leave the pudding dense and heavy.

“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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Steamed Fruit Pudding