Name: Another Way to Make Apple Pudding
Ingredients: 8 large apples; ½ cup water; ½ pound fresh butter; ½ pound pounded loaf sugar; ½ grated nutmeg; peel of 2 lemons, grated; 7 egg whites, beaten

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

Pare and core the apples.
Stew the apples in water until soft enough to press through a sieve.

Make the pudding

While hot, stir in the butter and sugar.
Add the nutmeg, lemon peel, and beaten egg whites.
Mix all ingredients well together.

Bake

Bake in a dish lined with puff pastry.

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.

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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the bulk and the main flavor of the pudding once stewed and pressed.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the pudding.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps give it a soft, set texture.
Egg whites: Add structure and lightness, helping the pudding set when baked.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg whites. Egg whites set into a delicate structure when heated, so they should be beaten well and folded in gently to keep the pudding light rather than dense.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Orangefits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, egg. 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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Another Way to Make Apple Pudding