Name: Steamed Apple Pudding
Ingredients: apples; 1 pint all-purpose flour; other ingredients for soda biscuit batter; molasses or cold sauce for serving

Why it works: Flour and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 889 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Steamed Apple Pudding

Ingredients

apples
1 pint all-purpose flour
other ingredients for soda biscuit batter
molasses or cold sauce for serving

Directions

Peel and slice the apples, then fill a pudding dish nearly to the top.
Prepare a batter similar to soda biscuit using 1 pint of flour and the appropriate proportions of other ingredients.
Steam the apples for 1.5 hours.
Spread the batter over the apples and steam for an additional 20 minutes.
Serve with molasses 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.

Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together889 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,429 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apple + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together260 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + molassestop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together970 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).