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 ↓
Apple Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the filling
Weigh and prepare the apples by peeling, coring, and slicing them into thin bits.
In a bowl, combine the apples and brown sugar, layering them alternately.
Make the suet paste
Make a suet paste by mixing flour, grated bread, and suet, adding enough milk or water to form a dough.
Roll the paste thinner at the edges and large enough to fit a buttered 2-quart basin.
Assemble and boil
Place the apple and sugar mixture into the basin, wet the edges of the paste, and fold it over the filling.
Dredge the top with flour and tie a pudding cloth over the basin.
Boil the pudding for 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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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Apple + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Apples
- Provide the bulk of the filling and tartness that balances the sweetness.
- Brown sugar
- Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavor as it dissolves into the apple juices.
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the dough structure that encloses the filling and holds its shape during boiling.
- Suet
- Adds fat that makes the paste rich and tender as it cooks.
- Grated bread
- Adds body to the paste, helping it bind and absorb some moisture.
The step that matters
Sealing the paste over the filling. If the edges are not wetted and pressed together, the seam can open during boiling, letting water into the pudding and filling so it turns soggy. Paste rolled thinner at the edges also seals more easily.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, bread, milk, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, bread, milk, 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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