Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough and cups
Mix together flour and baking powder, adding enough water to make a stiff dough.
Butter teacups and fill each with a little dough and some stoned cherries, then add more dough until cups are half full.
Steam and serve
Steam for 30 minutes.
Serve with sweetened cream.
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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
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
- Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure and holds its shape.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when moistened and heated, making the dough rise and turn light.
- Stoned cherries
- Release their juice and flavour into the surrounding dough as they steam.
The step that matters
Filling the teacups only half full. The baking powder makes the dough rise during steaming. Filling past half leaves no room for that rise, so the dough can spill over the cup and cook unevenly.
“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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