Name: Bakewell Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb biscuit crumbs; 6 oz sugar; ½ cup cream; 2 oz dried cherries; ½ lb cored pears; 6 eggs; 2 dozen almonds; a little salt

Why it works: Biscuit and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 388 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Bakewell Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Butter a pie dish.

Assemble the layers

In a bowl, mix biscuit crumbs, sugar, and cream.
Layer the mixture in the pie dish, followed by a layer of thinly sliced pears.
Add another layer of biscuit crumbs, then dried cherries, more crumbs, and almonds.
Beat two eggs and pour over the layers, reserving one egg for the top.
Mix a little salt and sugar with the reserved egg before whipping it.
Decorate the top with dried cherries and almonds.

Bake

Bake for 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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.

Biscuit + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together388 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Pear + almondtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together175 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Biscuit + peartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,235 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Biscuit crumbs: Form the bulk of the body and absorb the cream and egg as they bake.
Eggs: Bind the layers and set into a custard as the pudding bakes.
Cream: Adds moisture and richness to the crumb mixture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Pears: Add moisture and a soft, fruity layer within the pudding.
Almonds: Add a nutty aroma and crunch to the topping and layers.

Swap the pear

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, sugar, cream, egg, almond):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, sugar, cream, egg, almond. 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.