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Dessert

Apple and Bread-crumb Pudding

A baked pudding made with layers of grated bread, butter, chopped apples, sugar, nutmeg, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 and Bread-crumb Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Grease a pudding dish.

Layer and bake

  1. Layer grated bread in the dish, about ½ inch thick.

  2. Add bits of butter on top of the bread layer.

  3. Add a layer of chopped apples, sprinkling sugar and nutmeg to taste.

  4. Repeat the layers until the dish is full.

  5. Pour ½ cup of cold water over the entire dish.

  6. Bake for 30 minutes.

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.

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

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

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooking apples
Provide the main fruit body and tart flavour that the sugar balances.
Grated bread
Forms the soft, absorbent layers that soak up custard-like moisture as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and helps the top brown.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart apples and helps the surface brown during baking.

The step that matters

Pour the cold water over the entire dish. The water spreads through the layered bread and apples and turns to steam as the dish heats, keeping the bread moist. Pouring it evenly over every layer prevents dry pockets and uneven softness.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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