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Dessert

Boiled Apple Pudding

A boiled pudding made with suet, flour, apples, sugar, spices, and butter, cooked in a basin over simmering water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Boiled Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Make a paste with suet, flour, salt, and enough water to form a dough.

  2. Roll out the dough thinly and line a well-buttered basin with it.

  3. Trim the edges and roll out the trimmings to cover the top of the basin.

Fill and assemble

  1. Layer the sliced apples in the basin, sprinkling sugar and spices between layers.

  2. Add a small piece of butter and pack the apples tightly.

  3. Cover with the rolled-out dough, fold the edges, and press them down.

Boil and serve

  1. Tie a floured pudding cloth over the basin and place it in a saucepan of boiling water.

  2. Ensure the basin is covered with water and boil for 2 to 3 hours, depending on size.

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. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Suet
Adds richness and a tender, crumbly texture to the pastry dough.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure so it holds together during boiling.
Good sound apples
Provide the main filling, becoming soft and moist as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and balances their natural tartness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the filling and greases the basin.

The step that matters

Pack the apples tightly. Loose packing leaves air gaps that can let the filling sink or cook unevenly, while firm packing keeps the apples compact and evenly tender during the long boil.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apple, 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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