Name: Apple, Currant, Cherry, or Other Fresh Fruit Pudding
Ingredients: suet or butter; flour for dusting; apples (pared, cored, and quartered) or other fresh fruit; coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); pounded sugar or good Lisbon sugar; fresh butter (optional); finely grated nutmeg (optional); juice and grated rind of a lemon (optional)

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple, Currant, Cherry, or Other Fresh Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

suet or butter
flour for dusting
apples (pared, cored, and quartered) or other fresh fruit
coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
pounded sugar or good Lisbon sugar
fresh butter (optional)
finely grated nutmeg (optional)
juice and grated rind of a lemon (optional)

Directions

Make a paste with suet or butter as for a beef-steak pudding.
Lay a well-floured cloth into a basin, dip it in hot water, wring it dry, and shake it out.
Roll the paste thin and press it evenly into the basin on the cloth.
Fill the basin with prepared apples or other fruit.
Moisten the edges of the paste, press them together, and fold them over.
Gather the ends of the cloth and tie it firmly close to the pudding.
Drop the pudding into plenty of fast boiling water.
When done, lift it out using a strong fork twisted into the corner of the cloth.
Turn it gently into the serving dish and cut a small round or square from the top immediately.
Serve without delay, accompanied by pounded sugar or good Lisbon 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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, apple, sugar, lemon):

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegthe original
Gingerfits less well
Sagefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, apple, sugar, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.