Name: Brown Pudding
Ingredients: 2 teacups bread crumbs; 1 cup milk; 2 cups chopped apples; 1 cup sugar; 1 tablespoon melted butter; a little cinnamon; a little nutmeg

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brown Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Scald the bread crumbs in the milk.
Mix in the chopped apples, sugar, melted butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Bake and serve

Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.
Serve with a rich 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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs: Form the soft base of the pudding and soak up the milk to hold its body.
Milk: Softens the bread crumbs and adds moisture so the pudding bakes tender.
Chopped apples: Add fruit moisture and tart flavor that contrasts with the sugar.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
Melted butter: Adds richness and fat for a tender texture and flavor.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Raisinfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.