Name: Amherst Pudding
Ingredients: 3 cups flour; 1 cup suet; 1 cup milk; 2 cups raisins; Salt and spice to taste; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup sugar (for sauce); ½ cup butter (for sauce); 1 egg (for sauce)

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Amherst Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

In a large bowl, combine flour, suet, milk, raisins, salt, spice, and baking soda, then mix well.
Pour the mixture into a cloth bag.
Boil the bag in water for 3 hours.

Make the sauce

For the sauce, melt the butter and mix it with sugar and the egg until smooth.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 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).
Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,147 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

Flour: Forms the structure of the pudding as it sets during boiling.
Suet: Adds fat and richness, keeping the pudding moist and tender.
Baking soda: Reacts to lighten the pudding so it rises and becomes less dense.
Raisins: Add sweetness and chewy texture throughout the pudding.
Egg: Binds the sauce and gives it a smooth, thickened body.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, sugar, sauce, butter, egg):

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Figfits less well
Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, sugar, sauce, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.