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 ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a large bowl, combine milk, butter, eggs, cream of tartar, and baking soda.
Gradually add flour until a stiff batter forms.
Fold in the cherries.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish.
Boil or steam for 2 hours.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Builds the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set the pudding as it cooks.
- Cream of tartar
- Reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
- Baking soda
- Releases carbon dioxide gas with the acid, lightening the batter.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and softens the flour into a batter.
- Cherries
- Add fruit flavour and juiciness throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Adding the flour gradually. Flour thickens the batter as it is added. Stopping once a stiff batter forms keeps the pudding from becoming dense and heavy, while too little flour leaves it slack and unable to hold its shape.
“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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