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Dessert

Apple and Brown Bread Pudding

A steamed pudding made with brown bread crumbs, apples, suet or lard, milk, egg, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Apple and Brown Bread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the brown bread crumbs and lard in a bowl.

  2. Add the chopped apple, salt, and flour to the mixture.

Make and steam

  1. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then stir into the dry ingredients.

  2. Steam the mixture for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon sauce or hard 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.

  1. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the milk to give body.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps it set as it steams.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs so the pudding stays soft and tender.
Suet or lard
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture.
Chopped apple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness that lightens the richness.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture for 2 hours. Gentle, steady steam cooks the egg and crumbs evenly into a set, moist pudding. Boiling too hard or letting the water run dry can make the outside tough or the inside uneven.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, flour, egg, apple, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, egg, apple, milk. 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.

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