Why it works: Chestnut and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a shallow baking dish with salad oil.
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix the chestnut flour, water, and eggs if using to form a batter.
Add sugar, salt, and spices to the batter.
Fold in the pitted cherries.
Bake and serve
Pour the batter into the dish and bake until the surface sets.
Drizzle more oil on top to brown and crisp the pudding.
Cut into squares and serve hot.
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.
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Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together517 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + chestnuttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Chestnut flour
- Forms the batter and sets into the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
- Cherries
- Add moisture, tartness and fruit flavor throughout the pudding.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter to lighten the pudding as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown lightly.
The step that matters
Drizzling oil on top before baking. Oil on the surface helps the top brown and crisp rather than dry out or stay pale. Too little oil can leave the surface dull and dense.
Swap the chestnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutthe original
- Milletfits about as well
- Macadamia nutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, 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.
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