Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple and Batter Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with a thin batter of milk, eggs, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple and Batter 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).

  2. Butter a pudding dish and place the peeled and cored apples in it.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the milk, beaten eggs, baking soda dissolved in hot water, cream of tartar, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour to create a thin batter, then stir in the softened butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter over the apples in the dish.

  2. Bake for 45 minutes or until set and lightly golden.

  3. Serve warm with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 fruit base and moisture that softens during baking under the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a custard-like pudding.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, helping the batter turn tender and custardy.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it bakes into a set, sliceable pudding.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to lift the batter and lighten its texture.
Cream of tartar
Acidic partner to the baking soda, helping the batter rise and stay light.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually to the batter. Adding flour slowly while stirring keeps the batter smooth and lump-free, so it bakes evenly and sets into a uniform texture rather than a lumpy one.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes