Name: A Common Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; 6 ounces finely minced beef suet (or ½ pound butter for a richer pudding); 1¼ pounds good boiling apples, peeled and cored; Juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon (or 1-2 teaspoons grated nutmeg or cinnamon); 1-2 tablespoons orange or quince marmalade (optional); Fresh butter (optional, for serving)

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 all-purpose flour
6 ounces finely minced beef suet (or ½ pound butter for a richer pudding)
1¼ pounds good boiling apples, peeled and cored
Juice and grated rind of 1 small lemon (or 1-2 teaspoons grated nutmeg or cinnamon)
1-2 tablespoons orange or quince marmalade (optional)
Fresh butter (optional, for serving)

Directions

Make the crust

Make a light crust by mixing flour and suet (or butter) until crumbly.
Roll the dough thin and fill it with the prepared apples.
Add the lemon juice and rind (or nutmeg/cinnamon).
For a richer pudding, use butter for the crust and add marmalade to the apples.

Boil and serve

Tie the pudding in a cloth and boil for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
After Christmas, boil for an additional 20-30 minutes.
Stir in a small slice of fresh butter when sweetening, if desired.

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).
Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the light, crumbly structure of the crust that holds the filling.
Beef suet: Adds fat to the crust, giving it a short, tender texture; butter can replace it.
Boiling apples: Provide the bulk of the filling, softening as they cook and adding moisture.
Marmalade: Adds sweetness and a citrus note to the apple filling.