Name: Steamed Pudding
Ingredients: 1 egg; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 cup butter; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup dried or fresh fruit; 1½ cups flour; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; ½ teaspoon baking soda

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 ↓

Steamed Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the egg, sugar, butter, sweet milk, dried or fresh fruit, flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.

Steam and serve

Steam the pudding for 30 minutes.
Remove from the steamer and let cool slightly before serving.

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).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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.
Egg: Binds the batter and helps give the pudding its set structure.
Butter: Adds fat for a tender, moist crumb and rich flavor.
Cream of tartar: Acidic powder that reacts with baking soda to help the pudding rise.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas that lightens the pudding.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and adds softness to the crumb.

“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.