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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with eggs, breadcrumbs, sugar, cider or molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Paradise 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. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix the chopped apples with sugar, bread crumbs, lemon peel, salt, and nutmeg.

  2. Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the sweet cider or molasses.

  4. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered mold.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the oven for 3 hours.

  2. 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 + cidertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,238 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set during baking to give the pudding its firm, custard-like structure.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the liquids and give the pudding its soft, bready body.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity flavor, softening as the pudding bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Sweet cider or molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper, rounded flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps keep the pudding from sticking to the mold.

The step that matters

Butter the mold well. A thoroughly buttered mold keeps the set, moist pudding from sticking to the sides, so it releases cleanly when turned out.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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