Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Buffalo Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix the flour and baking powder thoroughly in a bowl.
Add the salt and cornstarch, then mix until you achieve a drop cake consistency.
Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.
Layer and steam
Drop part of the mixture into a buttered tin pail or steamer, layer with berries or dried fruit, then cover with more batter.
Steam for 1.5 hours, ensuring the water is boiling and the pail is tightly covered while steaming.
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 + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Flour + appletop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,140 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure as the starch and protein that set the pudding's body.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas as it reacts with moisture and heat, lifting the batter so it rises.
- Cornstarch
- Softens the flour's gluten, giving a more tender, lighter texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat that enriches flavour and tenderness in the crumb.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling and the pail tightly covered. Steam is what cooks the pudding. If the water stops boiling or the lid lets steam escape, the pudding cooks unevenly and can turn heavy and wet.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, 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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