Name: Apple Puddlng
Ingredients: 5 large sour apples, chopped; 1 cup raisins; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 cup flour; ½ cup butter; 2 eggs; ¼ teaspoon salt

Why it works: Raisin and flour 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 ↓

Apple Puddlng

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

Mix and bake

Add the chopped apples, raisins, milk, flour, eggs, and salt; mix well.
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.
Bake for 1 hour.

Serve

Serve with your choice of 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and butter 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

Sour apples: Provide moisture and tartness that balances the sweetness of the pudding.
Flour: Provides structure as the batter sets during baking.
Eggs: Bind the batter and help it set into a tender, cohesive pudding.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, milk, flour, butter, egg):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, milk, flour, butter, egg. 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.