Name: Jam Poly Oly or Roll Pudding
Ingredients: butter; sugar; grated lemon rind; yolks of eggs; cream; preserve; whites of eggs; vanilla sugar; jam

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Jam Poly Oly or Roll Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a sharp oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

In a saucepan, combine butter, sugar, and grated lemon rind. Simmer for 15 minutes.
Allow the mixture to cool, then beat in the yolks of eggs and part of the cream.
Pour into a buttered dish and bake gently at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.
Spread the top with preserve and moisten with the remaining warm cream.
Beat the whites of eggs to a froth, mix with ½ ounce sugar, and spread on top.
Return to the oven to brown the meringue.
Dust with vanilla sugar and serve with cream or custard.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,050 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,961 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the lemon

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

Strawberryfits better
Coconutfits better
Raspberryfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.