Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Steamed Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mold
Grease the rim and edges of a 2‑quart pudding mold and the inside of the cover with butter.
Fill the mold two‑thirds full with sliced sour apples.
Make the dough
In a bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Add the milk and mix with a knife until combined.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out to fit the mold.
Cover the apples with the rolled dough, sealing it closely.
Steam and serve
Steam for 1 hour in a steamer or place the mold on a trivet in a kettle surrounded by water, ensuring the water does not touch the cover.
Serve with vanilla or lemon sauce.
To serve, remove the cover from the mold and loosen the pastry around the edges.
Invert the mold onto a serving platter, leaving the crust on the bottom and the apples on top.
Cut and serve like a pie.
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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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 dough's structure, holding the crust together around the apples.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during steaming, giving the dough a light, risen texture.
- Milk
- Hydrates the flour so the dough comes together and stays moist.
- Sour apples
- Provide tartness and moisture that contrast with the sweet sauce served alongside.
The step that matters
Keep the water from touching the cover. If water reaches the cover or mold opening, it can seep into the pudding and make the crust soggy and waterlogged. Keeping the mold on a trivet above the water lets steam cook the dough evenly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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