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Dessert

Dutch Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with a dough of salt, egg, baking powder, milk, apples, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Dutch Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and layer

  1. In a bowl, mix salt, egg, baking powder, and milk to form a dough.

  2. Spread the dough in a baking dish.

  3. Layer the apple pieces in the dough, placing them in two layers.

  4. Sprinkle the apples with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until the apples are soft.

  2. Serve with lemon sauce or whipped cream.

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. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  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

Egg
Binds the dough and gives it structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the heat so the dough rises and turns light.
Milk
Moistens the dry ingredients so they form a soft, cohesive dough.
Apples
Soften during baking and add moisture and fruity sweetness to the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top of the apples brown slightly.

The step that matters

Layering the apple pieces in the dough. Apples release moisture as they bake, so they need to sit evenly within the dough. Uneven layers can leave wet pockets or dry patches, and the dough may not set uniformly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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