Name: Cracked Wheat Pudding
Ingredients: cold cooked cracked wheat; tart apples, sliced thin; 2 tablespoons sugar; 1 tablespoon raisins; 1 cup cold water

Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cracked Wheat 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.

Prepare

In a deep pudding dish, layer cold cooked cracked wheat and thinly sliced tart apples.
Sprinkle with sugar and add raisins.
Fill the dish with the remaining wheat on top and pour in cold water.

Bake

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for two hours.

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.

Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Wheat + raisintop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together163 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Wheat + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together205 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Cold cooked cracked wheat: Forms the bulk of the pudding and sets to a soft, tender body as it bakes.
Tart apples: Add moisture and a bright acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the apples and wheat brown lightly in the oven.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy pockets of fruit throughout the pudding.