Name: Baked Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 1 lb suet, finely chopped; 1 lb flour; ½ lb sultanas; 2 oz candied peel; 2 oz sugar; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 egg; 1 cup milk

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 ↓

Baked Plum Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Sift the flour into a bowl.
Mix the chopped suet with sugar, baking powder, candied peel, and sultanas.

Make and bake

Beat the egg, add the milk, and mix well with the other ingredients.
Pour the mixture into a well buttered Yorkshire pudding tin.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes until firm and golden.

Serve

Cut into small squares, pile on a dish, and serve with sugar sprinkled over.

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.

Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Egg: Binds the mixture and helps it set firm when baked.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes lighter.
Sultanas: Add sweetness and chewy fruit pieces throughout the pudding.

“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.