Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Albert Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the butter with a wooden spoon until creamy, then stir in the sugar.
Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.
Beat the egg whites stiffly in a separate plate.
Beat the yolks in another bowl and add the milk to them.
Grease a medium-sized basin.
Line the basin with raisins, pressing them against the sides.
Make the pudding
Mix the butter and sugar with the flour and yolks alternately.
Stir in the grated lemon rind.
Pour the mixture into the basin.
Cover with greased paper.
Steam for 1.5 hours.
Serve
Serve with German sauce.
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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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Eggs
- Whites are beaten stiff to lighten the batter, and yolks add richness and binding.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pudding once it is set by steaming.
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps cream the butter for a lighter texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during steaming to help the pudding rise and become light.
- Raisins
- Lining the basin, they add sweetness, chew and fruity flavour to the outside of the pudding.
The step that matters
Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten stiff, and deflating them while combining the batter loses the lift needed for a light pudding. The recipe's whites are beaten separately, so they must be folded in gently rather than stirred vigorously.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, raisin, milk. 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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