Name: Swiss Pudding
Ingredients: 6 tablespoons flour; 3 tablespoons castor sugar; 1 egg; ½ cup jam or marmalade; 3 oz lard; 1 teaspoon baking powder; a little 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 ↓

Swiss Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub the lard into the flour.
Add the sugar, egg, baking powder, and enough milk to make a stiff mixture.
Butter a basin well and place the jam or marmalade at the bottom.
Pour the mixture into the basin.

Steam

Steam for 1.5 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

Flour: Forms the structure of the sponge once wet and heated.
Egg: Binds the mixture and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Baking powder: Releases gas when heated, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb by coating the flour.
Jam or marmalade: Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, which soaks down into the sponge as it steams.

“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.