Name: Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 12 apples, peeled and cored; 1 small piece of butter; 12 eggs; crumbs of 1 penny loaf of bread, grated; ½ nutmeg, grated; a little rose water; sugar to taste; ¼ pound butter, melted; citron or orange peel

Why it works: Butter and bread 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

Prepare the apples

Boil the apples in a saucepan with a small piece of butter until soft.

Make the pudding mixture

In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the grated bread crumbs, grated nutmeg, rose water, and sugar. Add the melted butter and mix well.

Assemble

Layer the mixture with the boiled apples and citron or orange peel in a dish.

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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Rose + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together876 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Cook down to a soft, tender base that gives the pudding its body and fruit flavour.
Eggs: Set the custard-like mixture and bind it into a sliceable pudding as they cook.
Bread crumbs: Soak up the egg and butter mixture, giving the pudding structure and a soft texture.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture, and helps the pudding feel tender and smooth.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, bread, nutmeg, rose, sugar, orange):

Lemonfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, bread, nutmeg, rose, sugar, orange. 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.