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Dessert

Bread and Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of sliced apples layered with soaked stale bread, sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Bread and Apple Pudding

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Bread and Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a baking dish.

  3. Pare, core, and slice the apples.

  4. Soak the bread in cold water.

Assemble

  1. Layer half of the apples in the bottom of the baking dish.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and a little salt.

  3. Add a layer of soaked bread, then the remaining apples.

  4. Cover the top with stale bread crumbs and moisten with melted butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 30 minutes, covering the dish for the first 15 minutes.

  2. Serve hot with lemon sauce.

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.

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.

  1. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Apples
Provide the fruit base, softening as they bake and releasing moisture into the custard-like layers.
Stale bread
Soaks up liquid and gives the pudding a soft, tender structure rather than a dense crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples brown slightly at the edges.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top crumbs brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering the dish for the first 15 minutes. Covering traps steam so the apples cook through and the bread stays moist. Removing the cover lets the top dry and brown. Leaving it covered throughout can make the top pale and soft.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, bread, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, bread, 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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