Name: A Common Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound flour; 6 ounces finely minced beef suet; 1¼ pounds good boiling apples, pared and cored; juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon; ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg or cinnamon (optional); ½ cup fresh butter (optional for richer pudding); 1-2 tablespoons orange or quince marmalade (optional for richer pudding)

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Common Apple Pudding

Ingredients

1 pound flour
6 ounces finely minced beef suet
1¼ pounds good boiling apples, pared and cored
juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon
¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg or cinnamon (optional)
½ cup fresh butter (optional for richer pudding)
1-2 tablespoons orange or quince marmalade (optional for richer pudding)

Directions

Make the pudding

Make a light crust by mixing flour and suet, then roll it thin.
Fill the crust with the prepared apples, lemon juice, and rind.
Tie the pudding in a cloth and boil for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
After Christmas, boil for an additional 20 to 30 minutes.

Optional richer version

For added flavor, stir in a small slice of butter when sweetening.
For a richer pudding, use butter instead of suet and add marmalade to the apples.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Nutmeg + orangetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,746 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure of the light crust that holds the filling.
Beef suet: Adds fat that gives the crust a tender, rich texture.
Boiling apples: Provide the bulk of the filling and moisture as they cook through.
Fresh butter: Adds fat and richness when used in place of suet or as a small addition.

The step that matters

Tying the pudding in a cloth. The cloth must be tied with room for the pudding to swell, and it must stay submerged so the pudding cooks evenly and does not turn soggy or uneven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

Cinnamonfits better
Thymefits about as well
Nutmegthe original
Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, beef, apple, lemon, butter, orange. 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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Apple Pudding256 recipes

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

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A Common Apple Pudding