Name: Hydropathic Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound red currants; ½ pound raspberries; 2 cups water; ½ pound sugar; thin slices of stale bread; ½ cup cream or boiled custard

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Hydropathic Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the fruit mixture

Combine red currants, raspberries, and water in a pot.
Add sugar and stir until dissolved.

Assemble and serve

Layer thin slices of stale bread in a serving dish.
Pour the fruit mixture over the bread.
Top with cream or boiled custard before serving.

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.

Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Red currant + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together84 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Bread + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,789 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,156 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Red currant + creamtop 30% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together247 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants: Provide tart flavor and juice that soaks into the bread and sets the pudding.
Raspberries: Add sweet-tart fruit flavor and juice that moistens the bread.
Sugar: Sweetens the fruit mixture and balances the tartness of the currants.
Stale bread: Soaks up the fruit juice to form the body of the pudding.
Cream or boiled custard: Adds richness and a creamy topping that softens the tart fruit.