Name: Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pint sour milk; 1 tablespoon lard; 1 teaspoon baking soda; flour (to make a stiff batter); apples (peeled and finely cut); butter (for greasing); cream (for serving); sugar (for serving); sauce (for serving)

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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).
Grease a baking dish with butter.

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix sour milk, lard, baking soda, and enough flour to create a stiff batter.
Place the finely cut apples in the dish and pour the batter over them.
Bake until well done.

Serve

Serve with cream and sugar or 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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas that lifts the pudding.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release carbon dioxide, helping the pudding rise.
Flour: Forms the stiff batter that gives the pudding its body and structure.
Apples: Provide moisture and tart fruit flavour as the pudding bakes around them.
Lard: Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Raisinfits better
Coconutfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, butter, cream, sugar, sauce. 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.