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Dessert

Marlborough Pudding

A baked apple and sponge cake pudding with butter, sugar, eggs, nutmeg, lemon, and optional citron garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Marlborough Pudding

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Marlborough Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Pare, core, and quarter the apples, then place them in a pot with ½ cup of water to stew until soft but not broken.

  3. Drain and mash the apples smoothly with the butter once cooled.

Make the pudding

  1. Gradually mix in the sugar, sponge cake, nutmeg, and lemon juice and zest alternately.

  2. Whisk the eggs until very thick, then stir them in gradually.

  3. Mix everything well, then pour into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes.

  2. Once done, sift white sugar over the top and garnish with thin slices of citron if desired.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cooked into a soft pulp that gives the pudding its moist, tender body.
Eggs
Whisked to trap air, then set during baking to hold the pudding together.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.
Sponge cake
Crumbs soak up liquid and add body to the mixture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the top brown in the oven.
Lemon
Juice adds acidity and zest adds bright aroma that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Whisking and folding in the eggs. Whisking the eggs until very thick traps air that helps the pudding rise and set lightly. Stirring them in gradually keeps that air from collapsing, so the texture stays light.

Swap the apple

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

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

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