Name: German Treacle Pudding
Ingredients: 1 tin Lyle's golden syrup; ½ lb flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 oz candied peel; 2 oz butter; 1 teaspoon Swiss milk; 1 teacup water

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

German Treacle Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Rub the butter into the flour.
Chop the candied peel and add it to the flour mixture.
Dissolve the Swiss milk in the water.
Stir the water mixture into the golden syrup.
Mix the syrup mixture with the dry ingredients using a wooden spoon.

Cook

Pour the mixture into a buttered mold or basin.
Boil for 3 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Syrup + flourtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,540 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Syrup + milktop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,143 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Golden syrup: Provides the sweetness, rich colour and sticky flavour that defines the pudding.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the pudding together as it cooks.
Butter: Rubbed into the flour to add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and stays light.
Candied peel: Adds citrus aroma and a bit of chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.

“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.