Name: Gingerbread Pudding
Ingredients: 4 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 lb suet, finely chopped; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 lb treacle; ½ 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 ↓

Gingerbread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger.
Add the finely chopped suet and sugar to the dry ingredients.
Melt the treacle, then mix it with the milk and add to the bowl.
Mix everything well until combined.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased basin and cover with greased paper.
Steam for about three hours.

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 + gingertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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

Flour: Forms the structure of the pudding as it steams.
Suet: Adds richness and a moist, tender crumb as it melts during steaming.
Baking powder: Releases gas to lighten the pudding so it rises and stays soft.
Treacle: Provides sweetness, dark colour and a moist texture.