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 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel and slice the apples.
Grease a pudding dish.
Layer and bake
Layer half of the bread crumbs in the dish.
Add bits of butter on top of the crumbs.
Layer the sliced apples over the crumbs.
Sprinkle sugar and nutmeg over the apples.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full.
Pour the cold water over the entire dish.
Bake for 30 minutes.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,790 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,790 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,997 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cooking apples
- Provide the fruit bulk and tart flavor that the pudding is built around.
- Bread crumbs
- Form the soft layers that soak up juices and give the pudding its body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor through the layers.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelize slightly while baking.
- Cold water
- Moistens the crumbs so they steam and soften during baking.
The step that matters
Pour the cold water over the entire dish. The water moistens the dry crumbs; it must reach all layers so the crumbs soften evenly rather than staying dry in pockets or turning soggy on top.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, bread, butter, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Clovefits about as well
- Gingerfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, bread, butter, sugar. 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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