Name: Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 2 pints apples, chopped fine; 1 pint stale bread crumbs; ½ pint brown sugar; 2 tablespoons butter; ⅓ cup mixed wine and brandy; 1 tablespoon ground allspice

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apple 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, combine the chopped apples, bread crumbs, brown sugar, butter, mixed wine and brandy, and ground allspice. Mix all ingredients well.

Bake and serve

Transfer the mixture to a baking dish and bake for nearly 1 hour.
Serve with butter and sugar as a 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.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,427 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,207 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,291 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + allspicetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together998 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the bulk and moisture that become the soft body of the pudding.
Stale bread crumbs: Absorb juices and give the pudding structure as it bakes.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and caramel notes as the pudding browns.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, helping the pudding feel moist and tender.
Mixed wine and brandy: Adds liquid and aromatic flavour that deepens the pudding's taste.

Swap the allspice

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, bread, sugar, butter, wine, brandy):

Cinnamonfits better
Clovefits better
Nutmegfits better
Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread, sugar, butter, wine, brandy. 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.