Name: Brown Betty
Ingredients: several large apples, sliced; butter, for greasing; bread crumbs, grated; sugar; 3 large lumps of butter, for topping

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 ↓

Brown Betty

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 the dish

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Grease a pudding dish with butter.

Layer and bake

Layer grated bread crumbs in the dish.
Add a layer of sliced apples on top.
Sprinkle sugar over the apples.
Repeat the layers of bread crumbs, apples, and sugar until the dish is full.
Finish with a top layer of bread crumbs.
Place 3 large lumps of butter on top.
Bake in the oven until golden brown.
Serve hot with hard 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.

Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,790 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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: Provide the fruit base that softens and turns tender during baking.
Bread crumbs: Form the layers that soak up apple juices and bake into a soft, structured base.
Sugar: Sweetens the apple layers and helps them caramelise slightly as they bake.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top layer brown well in the oven.