Why it works: Currant and fig work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 276 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓
Yeast Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough as for dumplings.
Tie the dough in a cloth, leaving room for it to swell.
Boil until done, about the same time as for a suet pudding.
For a variation, roll a small piece of dough, place a lump of butter and some brown sugar in the center, and close the dough around it.
Wrap this in a larger piece of dough to form the pudding.
Cook in boiling water or a deep steamer until done.
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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Currant + figtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together276 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + figtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,042 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + figtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,241 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,856 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, fig):
- Vanillafits better
- Apricotfits better
- Peachfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, fig. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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