Name: A Luction, Oe a Eachael
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; ½ cup water; 3 beaten eggs; ½ cup white sugar; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel; preserved cherries; 1 cup custard or cream; brandy to taste

Why it works: Butter and cream match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,494 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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.

Prepare the noodles

Make a thin noodle paste with flour and water.
Cut the paste into 2-inch strips.
Let the strips dry.
Boil the strips in water.
Drain the strips.

Assemble and bake

Mix the drained strips with beaten eggs, sugar, butter, and lemon peel.
Line a baking dish with preserved cherries.
Pour the mixture into the baking dish.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Serve

Serve with custard or cream flavored with brandy.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together41,494 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs

Aroma overlapmoderate

Mentioned together43,437 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together122,858 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Aroma overlapstrong

Mentioned together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Cream + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Aroma overlaplow

Mentioned together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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: Forms the thin noodle paste that gives the pudding its body.
Eggs: Set when baked, binding the noodles into a firm, sliceable custard-like pudding.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the pudding brown lightly at the surface.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Preserved cherries: Add fruit sweetness and acidity against the rich egg and noodle base.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set. Eggs set as their proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves the pudding loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery, so check for a firm centre rather than relying on time alone.

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

Vanillabetter flavor fit
Raisinbetter flavor fit
Figbetter flavor fit
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, butter, cream, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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.