Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Sponge Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Butter a mold generously.
Fill the mold three-quarters full with small sponge cakes soaked in wine.
Pour rich cold custard into the mold until full.
Cover the mold with buttered paper and tie a floured cloth tightly over it.
Boil the mold for one hour.
Carefully turn out the pudding and pour cold custard over it.
Alternatively, bake the pudding and serve with wine sauce instead of custard.
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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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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