Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Batter Apple 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 the apples
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel and core the apples, placing them neatly in a buttered dish.
Fill the core cavities with sugar if the apples are sour.
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the eggs until well mixed.
Add the milk, flour, salt, and baking powder to the eggs and beat until very light.
Pour the batter over the apples.
Bake and serve
Bake for 30 minutes or steam for 45 minutes.
Serve hot.
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.
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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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Milk + appletop 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).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the body of the batter, giving the pudding its structure as it sets.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping it rise and turn light and airy.
- Rich milk
- Adds moisture and richness, softening the batter and helping it set tender.
- Apples
- Provide the fruit base, becoming soft and sweet under the batter as it bakes.
The step that matters
Beat the batter until very light. Beating incorporates air into the eggs and milk before the flour goes in, and that trapped air, together with the baking powder's gas, is what lifts the pudding. Under-beating leaves it dense.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, sugar, 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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