Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Blackberry Pudding or Other Burries
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Mix a little flour with the fresh berries in a bowl.
Combine the remaining flour, salt, and baking soda in another bowl.
Add sweet milk and syrup or molasses to the dry ingredients and stir until smooth.
Gently fold in the berries to avoid breaking them.
Steam and serve
Grease a mold with butter and pour in the batter.
Place the mold in boiling water, ensuring the water does not reach the top.
Keep the water boiling for at least two hours.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,540 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + syruptop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it sets.
- Fresh berries
- Add moisture, flavor, and color throughout the pudding.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the syrup or molasses to lighten the batter and help it rise.
- Syrup or molasses
- Adds sweetness, depth of flavor, and moisture, and helps darken the pudding.
- Sweet milk
- Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a tender, moist texture.
The step that matters
Folding in the berries. Berries are fragile and can break and bleed juice into the batter if stirred vigorously, turning the pudding streaky and dense. Folding gently keeps them whole and distributed.
“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.
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