Name: Brown Betty Pudding
Ingredients: 6 or more cooking apples, peeled, cored, and finely chopped; Sugar, to taste; Cinnamon, to taste; Butter, in small bits; Bread crumbs

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 ↓

Brown Betty 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).

Layer and bake

Layer the chopped apples at the bottom of a buttered pudding dish.
Sprinkle the apples with sugar, cinnamon, and bits of butter.
Cover the apples with a layer of bread crumbs.
Repeat the layers until the dish is full, finishing with a top layer of bread crumbs and bits of butter.
Cover the dish closely and bake for 40 minutes.

Serve

Serve hot with cream and sugar.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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).

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

Cooking apples: Provide the bulk and tender, fruity filling that softens as it bakes.
Bread crumbs: Form the layered topping and soak up apple juices, giving a soft, structured texture.
Butter: Adds richness and helps the top layer brown as it bakes.
Sugar: Sweetens the tart apples and helps them caramelize slightly at the edges.