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Dessert

Swiss Pudding

A baked apple dessert with a crumb topping, made with apples, bread crumbs, egg, sugar, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Swiss Pudding

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Swiss Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and chop the apples.

  2. In a small saucepan, combine the apples, sugar, and cold water, and cook until soft.

  3. Separate the egg; add the yolk to the apple mixture and stir well.

  4. Beat the egg white until stiff and gently fold it into the apple mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a 1‑pint pie dish and line the bottom with bread crumbs, about 1 inch thick, and coat the sides.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the dish, cover with more bread crumbs, and dot with remaining butter.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes until the crumbs are nicely browned.

Serve

  1. Carefully turn out onto a hot dish and sprinkle with white sugar.

  2. Serve with apple syrup.

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.

  1. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cook down to a soft, sweet base that forms the body of the pudding.
Bread crumbs
Form the crisp, browned crust that lines and tops the pudding.
Egg
The yolk enriches the apple base and the whipped white lightens its texture.
Butter
Coats the dish and tops the pudding, adding richness and helping the crumbs brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Whipped egg white traps air that gives lightness; stirring it vigorously deflates the foam, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, sugar, 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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