Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make a crust as for pot-pie, rolling it out to ½ inch thick.
Grease a bowl and lay the crust in it, letting the edges hang over.
Fill with small apple pieces, sprinkle with sugar, and add a little water.
Wet the edges of the crust and fold them over the filling, pinching to seal.
Dip a cloth in boiling water, flour it, and cover the pudding, tying it securely with string.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Flour + appletop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,140 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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