Name: Apple Pudding
Ingredients: apples; water; lard; flour; baking soda; cream of tartar

Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Slice the apples and place them in a pan with a little water to stew.
In a bowl, mix lard with sifted flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar to form a dough.
Roll the dough out to fit the pan and cover the stewed apples with it.
Cover the pan and cook until the pudding is done.

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.

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.

Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,089 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).