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
Directions
Prepare the pudding
Make a paste with flour and suet or butter.
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.
Optionally, add lemon juice and grated rind when placing the fruit in the crust.
Moisten the edges of the paste, press them together, and fold them over.
Gather the ends of the cloth and tie it tightly around the pudding.
Boil and serve
Drop the pudding into plenty of fast boiling water.
When done, lift it out using a strong fork in the corner of the cloth.
Turn it gently into a serving dish and cut a small round or square from the top immediately.
Serve without delay, accompanied by pounded sugar and good Lisbon sugar.
Add a small slice of fresh butter and finely grated nutmeg if desired.
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.
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Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,790 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Flour and butter 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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the paste that wraps the fruit and holds its shape while boiling.
- Suet or butter
- Adds fat that makes the paste tender and rich rather than tough.
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling, adding moisture and a tart, sweet flavour as they cook.
The step that matters
Tying the cloth tightly. A loose cloth lets water seep into the paste and fruit, making the pudding soggy and causing it to lose its shape during boiling.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, apple, sugar, nutmeg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, apple, sugar, nutmeg. 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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