Name: Chhap Plum Pudding
Ingredients: 2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; ½ teaspoon cinnamon; ½ cup suet; ½ cup raisins; 1 egg; ½ cup molasses; ½ cup milk

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 ↓

Chhap Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.
Add the suet, raisins, egg, molasses, and milk. Mix until well combined.

Steam

Pour the mixture into a greased pudding mold.
Steam the pudding for 3 hours.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Cinnamon + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,928 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the main structure of the pudding as it cooks.
Baking powder: Releases gas during cooking so the pudding rises and turns light.
Suet: Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich in texture.
Egg: Binds the ingredients together and helps set the pudding's structure.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor to the pudding.
Milk: Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and helps form the batter.

“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.