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Dessert

Apple and Bread Pudding

A baked dessert made with layered bread, sweetened apples, egg, milk, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 and Bread 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

  1. Cut thin slices of bread and then cut them into triangles.

  2. Line a buttered pie dish with a layer of bread.

Layer and bake

  1. Add a layer of cooked and sweetened apples.

  2. Continue layering bread and apples until the dish is filled, ending with a layer of bread.

  3. Beat the egg with a little milk and pour it over the layers.

  4. Place a small piece of butter on top and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until brown.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the body of the pudding and soaks up the custard as it bakes.
Egg
Sets the milk mixture into a custard that holds the layers together.
Milk
Loosens the egg and soaks into the bread, giving a moist texture.
Apples
Add moisture and sweet, tangy fruit flavour between the bread layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Pour the egg and milk over the layers. The egg and milk must reach every layer evenly so the custard sets throughout. Pouring it too quickly or only on top leaves dry bread at the bottom and a loose, watery centre.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, bread, butter. 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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