Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples and suet
Pare the apples, core them, and cut them into small pieces.
Remove the skin from the suet and chop it very finely.
Make the dough
Combine the suet, flour, baking powder, and sugar in a bowl and stir the mixture well.
Moisten the mixture with cold water to form a dough.
Turn the dough onto a board and knead it slightly.
Cut off one-third of the dough.
Roll out the remainder of the dough to ⅓ inch thick.
Assemble and boil
Line a greased basin with the rolled dough.
Fill the basin with the apple pieces and add sugar to the apples.
Pour 2 tablespoons of water over the apples.
Roll out the remaining dough to fit the top of the basin and cover the apples with it.
Press the edges of the crust together to seal.
Dip a pudding cloth in boiling water, sprinkle it with flour, and tie it over the top of the basin.
Place the basin in a large pan of boiling water and boil for 2 hours.
Turn out onto a flat hot dish.
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.
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,140 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling and moisture that cooks down during the long boil.
- Suet
- Adds fat that makes the crust rich and tender as it cooks.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough that holds the pudding together.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lightens the dough as it cooks.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apple filling and the dough.
The step that matters
Sealing the crust edges. If the edges of the dough are not pressed together firmly, steam and juice can escape or leak into the boiling water, leaving the filling dry or the pudding waterlogged. A tight seal keeps the apples enclosed as they cook.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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.
More apple pudding recipes
You might also like
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipes
Dried Apple Cake51 recipes
Apple Tart24 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.