Name: Bread and Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: Oil or butter for greasing; Bread; Dried fruits (such as raisins, figs, or dates)

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bread and Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Oil or butter for greasing
Bread
Dried fruits (such as raisins, figs, or dates)

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Grease a deep dish with oil or butter.
Layer pieces of bread in the dish.
Add a layer of dried fruits over the bread.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden and set.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + raisintop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,111 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + raisintop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,630 recipes

Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).