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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A baked apple and currant pudding with roll crumbs, sugar, and brandy, served with melted butter, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Paradise Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. Combine eggs, apples, roll crumbs, sugar, currants, nutmeg, salt, lemon rind, and brandy or wine in a bowl.

  2. Stir the mixture well and pour it into a buttered mold.

  3. Boil the mold in a pot of water for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with melted butter, wine, and 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Currant + brandytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  4. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set firm as it cooks.
French roll crumbs
Provide bulk and absorb the liquid so the pudding holds its shape.
Apples
Add moisture and a tender texture as they soften during cooking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the fruit and lemon.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of sweet, concentrated fruit flavour throughout.
Brandy or white wine
Adds aroma and moisture while lending a subtle fruity depth.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, apple, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blackberryfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, apple, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, brandy, butter. 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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