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 ↓
Sultana Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Boil a large saucepan of water.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a basin.
Add the breadcrumbs, sugar, and chopped suet to the basin.
Clean the sultanas and mix them with the other ingredients.
Add enough water to form a stiff dough.
Steam
Place the mixture in a greased pudding basin.
Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water, sprinkle it with flour, and tie it over the basin, leaving a pleat for rising.
Plunge the basin into boiling water and boil steadily for 2½ 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the dough as its starch sets during cooking.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and gives it a rich texture.
- Breadcrumbs
- Absorb liquid and help give the dough a soft, tender body.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the pudding rise and lighten.
- Sultanas
- Add sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit flavour throughout the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and adds a little flavour depth.
The step that matters
Tying the cloth with a pleat and boiling steadily. The pudding rises as baking powder releases gas, so the pleat gives room to expand without bursting the cloth. Steady boiling keeps the water hot enough to cook the dough through evenly.
“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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