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Dessert

Apple Pudding. —

A baked apple pudding made with milk, apples, stale bread crumbs, and sugar, without eggs.

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

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Apple Pudding. —

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in the milk until soft.

  2. Stir in the sugar.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Place the apples in the bottom of a pudding dish, not too closely together.

  2. Pour the batter over and around the apples.

  3. Set the dish in a dripping pan of boiling water.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C), covering until nearly done.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that softens the bread and forms the custard-like base.
Stale bread crumbs
Soak up the milk and give the pudding its body and soft, set texture.
Apples
Supply fruit flavour and tender pieces that soften as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the custard brown lightly at the surface.

The step that matters

Setting the dish in boiling water. The water bath surrounds the pudding with gentle, even heat, so the custard sets evenly without overcooking or curdling at the edges.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applethe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, bread, 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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