Name: Sponge Cake Pudding
Ingredients: 1 sheet home-made sponge cake; ½ cup melted butter; grape or currant jelly

Why it works: Butter and grape are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,028 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Sponge Cake Pudding

Ingredients

1 sheet home-made sponge cake
½ cup melted butter
grape or currant jelly

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Divide the sponge cake lengthwise into three parts.
Pour melted butter over each part and spread thickly with grape or currant jelly.
Reassemble the layers into a loaf shape and pour melted butter over the top.

Bake and serve

Place in a 350°F (175°C) oven to warm through.
Serve with warm or cold sauce.

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.

Butter + grapetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,028 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sponge cake: Forms the bulk of the pudding and gives a light, soft crumb.
Melted butter: Adds moisture and richness, soaking into the cake layers.
Grape or currant jelly: Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, and moistens the layers between the cake.

“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.