Name: Her Majesty's Pudding
Ingredients: 3 sponge cakes; ½ cup white wine; colored sweetmeats; 4 eggs; 1 pint cream; 2 oz pounded almonds; butter (for greasing the mold)

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,516 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Her Majesty's Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

Butter a mold and decorate it with colored sweetmeats and fruit.
Cut the sponge cakes into slices and place them around the mold.

Make and cook the pudding

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, and pounded almonds to make a custard.
Pour the custard over the sponge cakes in the mold.
Steam or boil the pudding for 1 hour.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,083 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together9,245 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together1,760 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).
Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together5,130 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Set the custard so it holds its shape when cooked.
Cream: Adds richness and moisture to the custard.
Pounded almonds: Add nutty flavor and body to the custard.
Sponge cakes: Form the soft base that soaks up the custard.

Flavor stand-ins for the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, egg, cream, butter):

Almondthe original
Peasabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, egg, cream, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.