Name: Marlborough Pudding
Ingredients: 24 tablespoons stewed apples; 8 tablespoons wine; 6 tablespoons melted butter; 24 tablespoons sugar; 4 beaten eggs; 1 cup cream; spice to taste; grated rind of 1 lemon or orange

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Marlborough 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

In a large bowl, combine the stewed apples, wine, melted butter, sugar, beaten eggs, cream, spices, and grated rind.
Pour the mixture into a rich pastry crust in a deep dish.

Bake and serve

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
Serve warm or cold, with or without the 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.

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.

Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,207 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,157 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples: Provide the main body and fruity flavour of the filling.
Eggs: Set the custard-like filling as it bakes, giving it structure.
Cream: Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Melted butter: Contributes fat for richness and a tender, moist texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly as it bakes.
Wine: Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the filling.

Swap the apple

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

Vanillafits better
Raspberryfits better
Orangefits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, butter, sugar, egg, cream, 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.