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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A boiled apple and currant pudding with bread crumbs, sugar, and lemon, served with sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Paradise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare, core, and chop the apples.

  2. Beat the eggs, then mix them thoroughly with the apples.

  3. Combine all ingredients in a bowl.

Cook and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered mold.

  2. Cover with a cloth and boil for 1.5 hours.

  3. Serve with 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.

  1. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Bread + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,398 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Provide bulk and absorb moisture to give the pudding body.
Apples
Add moisture and a fruity flavour that keeps the pudding tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tart apples and lemon.
Currants
Add small pockets of sweetness and chewy texture.

The step that matters

Covering and boiling the mold. The cloth and steady simmering must keep the pudding moist and evenly cooked. If the water boils too hard or the cover is loose, the outside can over-cook and the centre can stay wet and unset.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, apple, bread, sugar, lemon):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, apple, bread, sugar, lemon. 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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