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Apple Strudel Filling

A sweet filling made from grated apples, sugar, currants, nuts, breadcrumbs, and butter.

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 Strudel Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Steam the grated apples and sugar until soft, along with the currants.

Assemble and roll

  1. Sprinkle the strudel dough with melted butter.

  2. Place the filling in half of the dough.

  3. Sprinkle grated nuts and sugar to taste.

  4. Roll the dough together, constantly sprinkling with melted butter.

  5. Once rolled, smear the top with more melted butter.

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 + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

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

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

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

  5. Currant + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the moist, tender body of the filling as they soften when steamed.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and softens the apples as they steam.
Melted butter
Adds fat that coats the dough, helping it brown and stay tender while rolling.
Grated nuts
Add texture and a rich, nutty flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Roll the dough together, constantly sprinkling with melted butter.. Butter brushed between the layers keeps the thin dough pliable so it does not tear, and its fat helps the layers separate and brown in the oven.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Cocoafits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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