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Dessert

Paradise Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with suet, bread crumbs, sugar, orange rind, nutmeg, eggs, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Paradise 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.

Make the pudding

  1. Mix all ingredients in a bowl, then beat the mixture with a wooden spoon for 10 minutes.

  2. Butter a basin and pour in the mixture.

  3. Tie a cloth over the basin.

Cook and serve

  1. Place it in fast boiling water and boil rapidly for 3 hours, or bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 1.5 hours.

  2. Serve with cream.

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. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  2. Apple + rumtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Orange + rumtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together801 recipes

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

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 set the pudding into a light, sliceable body as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body and a soft, tender crumb.
Beef suet
Adds fat that enriches the pudding and keeps it moist during long cooking.
Apples
Supply moisture, tartness and the main fruit flavour of the pudding.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds a rich, caramel-like depth of flavour.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture for 10 minutes. Beating works air into the mixture and distributes the eggs, fat and crumbs evenly. Thorough mixing gives a uniform, tender texture rather than a dense or uneven pudding.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, beef, bread, sugar, nutmeg, egg, rum):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, beef, bread, sugar, nutmeg, egg, rum. 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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