Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Apple 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.
Make the batter
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten egg and mix well.
Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk to the butter mixture.
Fold in the sliced apples last.
Bake and serve
Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.
Serve with vanilla 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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and creating a soft crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pudding as it bakes and sets.
- Egg
- Binds the batter and helps it set firm when baked.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the pudding rises and becomes light.
- Milk
- Adds moisture and hydrates the flour to form a batter.
- Apples
- Add moisture and a fruity flavour that bakes into the pudding.
The step that matters
Fold in the sliced apples last. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the batter and the baking powder's rise intact. Overmixing after the apples are added can deflate the batter and make the pudding dense.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, egg, milk):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, milk. 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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