Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
Directions
Make the pudding
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Lightly work in the eggs, then add the bread crumbs and orange marmalade.
Place the mixture in a mold and steam for 45 minutes.
Make the sauce and serve
For the sauce, boil the tablespoon of marmalade with the sherry and serve over the pudding.
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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Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Orange + sherrytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together823 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
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Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,662 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,505 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Bread + sherrytop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together682 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps create a creamy, aerated base when beaten with butter.
- Eggs
- Bind the mixture and help set the pudding as it steams.
- Bread crumbs
- Provide body and absorb the butter and marmalade to give the pudding its structure.
- Orange marmalade
- Adds fruit flavour, sweetness and acidity, and its sugar helps moisten the pudding.
- Sherry
- Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the sauce as it boils.
The step that matters
Steaming the pudding. Steaming gently and steadily cooks the eggs into a set, moist pudding. If the water boils dry or the steam is too weak, the pudding can turn out heavy or unevenly cooked.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, bread, sherry):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applefits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, bread, sherry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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