Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Roll Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Flour a cloth for boiling.
Roll out the paste into an oblong square shape on the cloth.
Spread stiff jam over the paste.
Roll the paste tightly around the jam.
Wrap the floured cloth tightly around the rolled paste and tie it at each end.
Secure the middle with a needle and thread.
Boil for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Optionally, add currants, spice, or sugar for variety.
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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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
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Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,256 recipes
Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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