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 ↓
Sultana Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the sultanas, flour, milk, and treacle together until well combined.
Transfer the mixture to a suitable pudding mold.
Boil the pudding for 5 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).
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
- Sultanas
- Add chewy pieces of fruit and natural sweetness throughout the pudding.
- Flour
- Provides starch that gelatinizes and sets the pudding into a firm, sliceable body.
- Milk
- Supplies liquid that hydrates the flour and keeps the pudding moist.
- Treacle
- Adds dark sweetness and a rich, molasses-like flavour.
The step that matters
Boil the pudding for the full 5 hours. Starch in the flour only sets once it is heated through. A long, steady boil cooks the centre fully, so cutting the time short leaves the pudding dense, wet, or underset.
“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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