Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Quick Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix the flour and baking powder together.
Beat the egg until very light.
Whisk in the sugar, then stir in the flour.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a buttered tin and bake for 5 minutes.
Roll and serve
Turn onto a sugared paper spread with jam.
Roll up and serve.
Serve with custard 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour 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
- Egg
- Beaten air and protein give the pudding its light, set structure.
- Flour
- Starch and gluten form the crumb that holds the sponge together.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, causing it to rise in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the sponge brown lightly as it bakes.
- Jam
- Adds sweetness and moisture to the rolled filling.
The step that matters
Beat the egg until very light. Beating traps air in the egg, which expands in the oven and gives the sponge its lift. Underbeaten egg leads to a dense, flat pudding that may not roll up neatly.
“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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