Name: Apricot Pudding
Ingredients: 1 cup sweet milk; 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder; 1 egg; ½ cup flour; 1 heaping tablespoon butter; 4 halves of canned apricots; Sugar (for serving); Whipped cream (for serving)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apricot Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a bowl, mix the sweet milk, baking powder, egg, flour, and butter until smooth.

Assemble and steam

Place a spoonful of the batter in each cup.
Add 4 halves of canned apricots on top of the batter in each cup.
Pour the remaining batter over the apricots.
Steam for 45 minutes.

Serve

Serve with sugar and 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Milk + apricottop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together826 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour: Provides the starch and structure that hold the pudding together as it cooks.
Egg: Sets during steaming and adds structure and richness to the batter.
Baking powder: Releases gas that lifts the batter so the pudding becomes light rather than dense.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the batter.
Canned apricots: Add fruity sweetness and moisture that soften into the pudding.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, butter, sugar, cream):

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, butter, sugar, cream. 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.