Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Golden Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the well-beaten eggs, flour, and baking soda dissolved in hot water.
Beat in the marmalade.
Steam and serve
Steam in a greased mold for 1 hour.
Serve with sweet sauce.
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 + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the pudding rich and tender in texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderize the batter when creamed with butter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and set during steaming to give structure.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the batter once it sets.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in the batter to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
- Marmalade
- Adds moisture and sweetness, along with its fruit flavor, to the batter.
The step that matters
Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it goes into the batter so it spreads evenly. Undissolved lumps can leave pockets of bitterness and uneven rising.
“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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