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 ↓
Princess Pudding a LA Camps
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Separate the eggs.
Stone and finely chop the raisins.
Wash and dry the currants.
Finely chop the mixed peel.
Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the egg yolks to the butter mixture and beat well for 10 minutes.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Gradually add the flour, stirring lightly.
Mix all the fruits into the batter until well combined.
Steam and serve
Butter a mold and sprinkle some chopped lemon peel inside.
Pour the mixture into the mold, leaving room for the pudding to rise.
Steam the pudding for four hours.
Serve hot with cold flake 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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Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together6,180 recipes
Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
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Butter + flourtop 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 + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender crumb and rich flavour.
- Eggs
- Whites add lift when beaten and folded in; yolks enrich the batter and help bind it.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the batter as it steams.
- Castor sugar
- Creams with butter to aerate the batter and adds sweetness and tenderness.
- Raisins
- Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the finished pudding.
- Currants
- Add tart, concentrated fruit flavour and moisture throughout the pudding.
The step that matters
Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites hold trapped air that gives lift. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, leaving a dense pudding, so fold in gently with a spatula until just combined.
Swap the currant
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, raisin, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, raisin, egg. 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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