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Dessert

Rick Baked Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with apples, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, egg yolks, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rick Baked Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Place apples in a saucepan with water and boil until soft.

  3. Beat the apples until smooth and stir in sugar, lemon juice, lemon peel, cinnamon oil, and egg yolks.

  4. Mix well and pour into puff pastry.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until nearly done, then sprinkle with grated sugar.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 to a soft pulp that forms the body of the filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the apple mixture as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds body to the pulp.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples and sugar.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until nearly done. Egg yolks set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can curdle or toughen it. Stop when the filling is just set and the pastry is golden.

Swap the apple

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

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

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