Name: Transparent Pudding
Ingredients: 8 egg yolks; 1 pint powdered sugar; ½ pound butter; 6 teaspoons flour; lemon flavoring; small fruit preserves (strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry) or thinly sliced citron

Why it works: Sugar and fruit preserve share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Transparent Pudding

Ingredients

8 egg yolks
1 pint powdered sugar
½ pound butter
6 teaspoons flour
lemon flavoring
small fruit preserves (strawberry, raspberry, or blackberry) or thinly sliced citron

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the pudding

In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, powdered sugar, and butter until smooth.
Add lemon flavoring to taste.
Stir in the flour to prevent the pudding from falling.
Place small fruit preserves or sliced citron at the bottom of a baking dish.
Pour the pudding mixture over the fruit.

Bake

Bake until set and lightly golden.

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 + fruit preservetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together37 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + fruit preservetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together28 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks: Provide richness and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Butter: Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and smooth mouthfeel.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the pudding and contributes to its smooth, fine texture.
Flour: Gives the pudding structure so it holds its shape rather than collapsing.
Small fruit preserves or citron: Adds sweetness and fruit flavor that sits at the base of the pudding.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour. The flour must be mixed in fully so it sets the pudding's structure; without it the pudding may fall as it cools.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Lemonthe original
Raspberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, flour, fruit preserve. 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.