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Dessert

Rich Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with apples, brown sugar, eggs, cream, and lemon, topped with citron strips and candied lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Rich 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 apples

  1. Peel, quarter, and core the apples.

  2. Stew the apples in ¾ cup of water with the lemon rind until soft.

  3. Rub the stewed apples through a colander.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the brown sugar, beaten eggs, rich cream, and lemon juice.

  2. Line a dish with pastry.

  3. Pour the apple mixture into the lined dish.

Bake and decorate

  1. Bake at 300°F (150°C).

  2. Decorate the top with thin strips of citron and candied lemon peel.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Apples
Cook down into a soft pulp that gives the pudding its body and fruity flavour.
Eggs
Set as the pudding bakes, giving it a firm, sliceable structure.
Rich cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and a softer set.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper caramel note.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake at a low temperature. Eggs set gently at 300°F. Higher heat can make the custard curdle, turn grainy, or weep liquid, so the pudding should be baked low and checked for a set centre.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

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