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Boiled Apple Pudding I

A steamed pudding made with suet crust, sliced sour apples, sugar, spices, lemon juice, and sherry or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Boiled Apple Pudding I

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a suet crust as directed for 'Boiled Apple Dumplings'.

  2. Roll out the crust and line a well-greased pudding basin, reserving about ¼ for the lid.

Fill and seal

  1. Fill the basin with slices of sour apples, sprinkle with sugar, and add cloves or cinnamon.

  2. Squeeze a little lemon juice over the apples and add 2 tablespoons of sherry or water.

  3. Roll out the reserved pastry to cover the top of the basin, moisten the edges, and press firmly together.

Steam

  1. Tie a well-floured cloth or greased paper over the top and steam the pudding for 2 to 3 hours.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the main filling and tart flavour that balances the sweetness.
Suet crust
Forms the pastry casing and lid that hold the filling during steaming.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples develop a softened, syrupy filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and keeps the fruit fresh-tasting.

The step that matters

Sealing the lid. If the edges are not moistened and pressed firmly together, steam and juices can escape or leak out during the long steaming, leaving the filling dry or the pudding poorly formed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, sherry. 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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