Name: Strawberry Cake Pudding
Ingredients: 3 egg yolks; 1 cup white sugar; ½ cup butter; ½ cup sweet milk; 2 cups flour; 1 teaspoon baking powder; strawberries, sugared

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry Cake Pudding

Ingredients

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 batter

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar, butter, and sweet milk.
Combine the flour and baking powder, then mix into the wet ingredients.

Bake and serve

Pour the batter into jelly‑cake pans and bake until golden.
Once cooled, layer the cake with sugared strawberries before serving.
Serve with or without rich cream or sauce.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 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).

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: Add richness and help bind the batter into a tender crumb.
Flour: Forms the cake's structure once it sets in the oven.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and stays light.
Butter: Adds fat for a soft texture and a rich flavour.
Sugar: Sweetens the cake and helps it brown as it bakes.
Strawberries: Add fruity sweetness and moisture between the cake layers.

“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.