Name: A Marrow Pudding
Ingredients: 1 penny loaf, crumbs; 1 pint cream, boiling hot; 1 pound beef marrow, very thinly sliced; 4 eggs, beaten; Sugar, to taste; Nutmeg, to taste; 2 ounces citron, very thinly sliced

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

A Marrow Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

Pour boiling cream over the crumbs of the penny loaf.
Mix in the thinly sliced beef marrow, beaten eggs, sugar, and nutmeg until well combined.
Boil or bake the mixture for 45 minutes.

Serve

Stick the thinly sliced citron all over the pudding when serving.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Beef + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,495 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together24,744 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together23,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Beef marrow: Melts into the custard, adding richness and a soft, moist texture.
Eggs: Set when heated, giving the pudding its structure and binding it together.
Penny loaf: Soaks up the hot cream, forming the bulk and body of the pudding.
Cream: Adds fat and moisture, producing a rich, tender custard.
Citron: Adds a thin, fragrant citrus note on the surface at serving.

“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.