Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the paste
Prepare a suet paste by mixing flour, suet, water, and salt.
Let the paste rest for 1 hour.
Roll out the paste to ⅓ inch thick.
Assemble and cook
Line a well-buttered dome-mould or large pudding-basin with the paste.
Garnish with sliced apples mixed with powdered sugar and lemon peel.
Seal the mould with another layer of paste.
Wrap the mould in linen and secure with string.
Cook in boiling water for about 3 hours.
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 + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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
- Flour
- Forms the paste's structure, holding the pudding together while it cooks.
- Suet
- Adds fat that keeps the paste rich and tender as it steams.
- Sliced apples
- Provide the fruit flavour and moisture inside the pudding.
The step that matters
Sealing the mould. A tight seal keeps the boiling water out and the steam and juices in. If the seal leaks, the pudding can become waterlogged and lose flavour.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, lemon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, lemon. 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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