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 ↓
Fruit Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the flour and milk.
Stir the baking soda into the molasses, then add it to the flour mixture.
Beat in the eggs and melted butter.
Fold in the fruit.
Cook
Pour the mixture into a pot and boil 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.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,429 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, 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
- Provides the starch and gluten that give the pudding its structure.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help set it as it cooks.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the molasses to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
- Molasses
- Adds sweetness, dark color and a deep flavor, and keeps the pudding moist.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and helps form a smooth, pourable batter.
The step that matters
Boil for 2 hours. Boiling a batter for a long time sets it gently and evenly. If the liquid boils down or the pot runs dry, the base can scorch and the pudding can turn dense and dry.
“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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