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Dessert

Railroad Pudding

A steamed apple pudding made with apples, sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter, eggs, and milk.

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 ↓

Railroad Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the apples with powdered sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Make the dough

  1. In another bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.

  2. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Beat the eggs and add enough cold milk to make a wet dough.

  4. Moisten the flour mixture with the egg and milk mixture, then roll it out.

Assemble, steam and serve

  1. Cover the apples with the dough, pressing it down at the sides.

  2. Cover the pan with a lid and steam for 20 minutes.

  3. Serve the pudding with wine or hard sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Provide the bulk and fruit flavour of the pudding as they soften during steaming.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure, which holds the pudding together when rolled and steamed.
Butter
Cut into the flour to create a crumbly texture and tender layers in the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Baking powder
Lifts the dough as it steams, giving it a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Pressing the dough down at the sides. The dough must seal tightly against the pan edges so steam cannot escape and the apples cook evenly inside a closed pudding.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter, egg, milk. 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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