Name: Fruit Batter Pudding
Ingredients: 1 quart ripe cherries or gooseberries; a few apples, cut up; a little moist sugar; ginger, to taste; nutmeg, to taste; light batter (prepared separately)

Why it works: Ginger and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Batter Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Grease a deep baking dish.

Assemble

Pour part of the batter into the dish.
Add the cherries or gooseberries, followed by the cut apples.
Sprinkle a little sugar, ginger, and nutmeg over the fruit.
Top with the remaining batter.

Bake

Bake for a little more than an hour until golden.

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.

Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,424 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Cherries or gooseberries: Supply the main fruit flavour and moisture that cooks down into the pudding.
Apples: Add body and tartness that balance the sweetness of the fruit and sugar.
Light batter: Bakes into a set, airy crust that rises and browns around the fruit.
Moist sugar: Sweetens the fruit and promotes browning on the surface during baking.