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Swiss Apple Pudding

A baked apple dessert with bread crumbs and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Swiss Apple Pudding

Why it works: Apple and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,790 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Swiss Apple 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Fill a pie dish three-quarters full with sliced fresh apples or half stewed apple rings.

  3. Sweeten the apples and flavor with the grated rind of half a lemon.

  4. Mix the bread crumbs with the sugar and rub them fine.

Bake and serve

  1. Press the mixture down firmly over the apples.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes until nicely browned.

  3. Sift caster sugar on top and serve hot or cold.

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

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

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 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

Apples
Form the soft, moist fruit base that the topping sits over and softens during baking.
Bread crumbs
Form the crumbly topping that dries and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and the crumb topping and helps the top brown.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic flavour that balances the sweetness of the apples and sugar.

The step that matters

Press the crumb mixture down firmly over the apples. Firm pressing packs the crumbs so they form an even layer that browns well rather than falling apart or drying out unevenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, bread. 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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