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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A layered apple dessert baked with a dough crust and sprinkled with sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Baked Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a deep dish, mix the flour, salt, and lard.

  3. Add the milk and work the mixture into a smooth dough.

  4. Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Grease a baking dish and line it with the rolled dough, cutting off excess at the edges.

  2. Layer the bottom with sliced apples, sprinkling with sugar and cinnamon between layers until full.

  3. Top the final layer of apples with sugar, cinnamon, small pieces of butter, and a few teaspoons of water.

  4. Sprinkle lightly with dry flour.

  5. Roll out remaining dough to cover the dish, sealing the edges.

  6. Make 3-4 incisions in the top crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, until a fork easily penetrates the pudding.

  2. Serve hot with 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough's structure, setting the crust that encloses the apples.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the pudding rise and turn light.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and flaky.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so the mixture forms a smooth, workable dough.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart fruit flavor that fills the pudding.

The step that matters

Working the dough to a smooth consistency. Overworking flour with liquid develops gluten, which makes the crust tough, while underworking leaves dry patches that won't hold together when rolled.

Swap the apple

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

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

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