Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓
Baked 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 and bake the apples
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Fill a three-quarter earthenware dish with the apples.
Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over the apples.
Add the butter and water, then cover and bake for 30 minutes.
Add the crust and bake
Roll out a piece of dough into a strip about 2 inches wide to fit around the dish.
Roll the remaining dough to cover the dish.
Remove the dish from the oven, insert the dough strip between the apples and the dish, and place the top crust on.
Return to the oven and bake for 1 hour.
Serve
Serve with creamy sauce.
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.
-
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
- Apples
- Soften during baking and release juices that form the pudding's filling.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the juices thicken into a syrup as they cook.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a smooth, mellow flavour.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough, providing structure for the strip and top crust.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm spiced aroma that complements the cooked apples.
The step that matters
Inserting the dough strip. The apples are already partly cooked and juicy, so the strip must sit snugly against the dish wall. A loose strip can slump or let juices seep under the top crust, so work quickly and press it firmly in place.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, butter, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, butter, flour. 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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