Name: Muffin Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; carraway seeds or coriander seeds (to taste); lemon peel (to taste); orange peel (to taste); sugar (to taste); a few light teacakes; cinnamon or nutmeg (to taste); ⅓ cup brandy; ¼ pound dried preserved cherries

Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Muffin Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flavoured milk

Boil the milk for 8 minutes with caraway or coriander seeds, lemon peel, orange peel, and sugar.
Strain the milk and mix it hot with the light teacakes.

Assemble and bake

Add cinnamon or nutmeg, brandy, and dried preserved cherries.
Bake until set.

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.

Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,498 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,437 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Coriander + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,635 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the liquid base that soaks into the teacakes and sets as the custard.
Light teacakes: Absorb the hot spiced milk and form the bready structure of the pudding.
Brandy: Adds aroma and flavour that carries through the baked pudding.
Dried preserved cherries: Add pockets of sweetness and fruit flavour throughout the pudding.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, orange, sugar, cinnamon, brandy):

Cardamomfits better
Nutmegfits better
Gingerfits better
Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, orange, sugar, cinnamon, brandy. 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.