Name: Graham Pudding
Ingredients: ½ pound figs, chopped fine; 1 pint water; 1 cup graham flour; 1 cup sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; ¾ pound nuts; whipped cream for serving

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 ↓

Graham Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

In a pot, combine figs and water; bring to a boil.
Stir in graham flour and cook until done.
Add sugar and salt, mixing well.
Allow the pudding to cool slightly, then fold in the nuts.

Serve

Serve cold with whipped cream.

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).
Fig + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fig + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,192 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Figs: Provide the main sweet flavor and a soft, moist body to the pudding.
Graham flour: Thickens the mixture as it cooks, giving the pudding its body and a nutty, wholesome flavor.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the earthy flavor of the graham flour and figs.
Nuts: Add texture and crunch against the soft, moist pudding.