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Dessert

Bread and Apple Pudding I

A baked bread pudding made with sour apples, milk, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Bread and Apple Pudding I

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Assemble

  1. Spread butter on the slices of bread and layer them in the bottom of a baking dish.

  2. Add a layer of the sliced sour apples and continue layering until the dish is full.

  3. In a bowl, combine the milk, beaten eggs, sugar, and vanilla extract.

  4. Pour the milk mixture over the layered bread and apples.

  5. Sprinkle ground cinnamon on top and dot with pieces of butter.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the structure and soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Sour apples
Provide tartness and moisture that balance the sweet custard.
Eggs
Set the milk mixture into a custard that holds the pudding together.
Milk
Forms the liquid custard base that softens the bread and sets when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown as it melts over the surface.

The step that matters

Pouring the milk mixture over the layers. The bread needs time to absorb the custard evenly. If it is poured too fast or unevenly, dry pockets remain and the pudding sets unevenly when baked.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, butter, milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, milk, egg, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon. 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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