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 ↓
Apple Bread 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel, core, and chop the apples.
Dry the bread in the oven until crisp, then roll it into crumbs.
Butter a deep baking dish.
Assemble and bake
Layer the bread crumbs and chopped apples alternately in the dish.
Sprinkle with sugar and spice, then add the chopped suet.
Pour the sweet milk over the layers.
Bake until nicely browned, about 30-40 minutes.
Serve with hard sauce.
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Sour apples
- Provide tart flavour and moisture that softens during baking, balancing the sugar.
- Bread
- Dried crumbs soak up the milk and set into a soft, custard-like structure.
- Beef suet
- Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a moist, tender texture as it melts.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown during baking.
- Sweet milk
- Moistens the bread crumbs and binds the layers together as it cooks.
The step that matters
Drying the bread until crisp. Bread that is only lightly dried stays soft and absorbs the milk unevenly, so the crumbs can turn soggy instead of holding their shape in the pudding.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, beef, sugar, cinnamon, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Applethe original
- Raisinfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, beef, sugar, cinnamon, 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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