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Dessert

Grape-pubbing

A baked dessert of grapes, sugar, and stale bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grape-pubbing

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Butter an earthen baking dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer ripe grapes, sugar, and stale bread crumbs alternately in the dish.

  2. Make the top layer with bread crumbs.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, sprinkled with powdered 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + grapetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,028 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Grape + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together131 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ripe grapes
Provide the fruit base, releasing juice and sweetness as they soften in the oven.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb the grape juice and give the pudding a soft, set body with a browned top.
Sugar
Sweetens the grapes and helps draw out juice that moistens the crumbs.
Butter
Greases the dish to prevent sticking and adds richness to the browned crumb edges.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, bread):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, bread. 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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