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 ↓
Cocoa Nut Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Remove the brown skin from the cocoa nut and grate it.
Mix the grated cocoa nut with milk, sugar, lemon peel, and butter if desired.
Bake
Put the mixture in a tin lined with pastry.
Bake until light brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Cocoa + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together643 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cocoa + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together548 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 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
- Cocoa nut
- Provides the main body, moisture and flavour of the grated filling.
- Milk
- Adds liquid that keeps the filling moist and soft as it bakes.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
- Lemon peel
- Adds a bright citrus aroma from its oils.
The step that matters
Bake until light brown. Colour is the only doneness cue given, and sugar browns quickly, so the pudding can scorch if left too long in the oven.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cocoa, milk, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Applefits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cocoa, milk, sugar, butter. 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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