Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the apple base
Cook the apples with sugar and butter until soft.
Press the cooked apples through a sieve.
Add cream and the egg yolks to the apple mixture.
Bake and top with meringue
Bake for a few minutes at 350°F (175°C).
Make a meringue with the egg whites and sugar.
Spread the meringue on top.
Bake a little longer.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the main body and fruit flavor once cooked soft and sieved.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the custard as they set; whites whip into the meringue.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, moist texture to the pudding.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and helps the meringue whip and stay glossy.
- Butter
- Adds fat and rounded flavor to the cooked apples.
The step that matters
Baking after the egg yolks go in. Egg yolks set as they heat, so the pudding needs enough heat to firm up. Baking too long dries the custard and can make it curdle or weep, so watch it closely.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cream. 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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