Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
French Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the flour, suet, currants, treacle, and milk well.
Pour the mixture into a basin.
Boil in a pot for three to four hours.
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 + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Currant + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,077 recipes
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together as it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender during the long cooking.
- Currants
- Add chewy pieces of fruit and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
- Treacle
- Adds sweetness, a deep colour, and a rich, molasses-like flavour.
- Milk
- Moistens the flour and gives the batter a soft, cohesive texture.
The step that matters
Keeping the boil steady for three to four hours. A long, steady simmer cooks the pudding gently and evenly. If the pot boils dry or the water drops too low, the pudding can scorch or cook unevenly, so the water level should be kept up over the full time.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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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