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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of stewed apples mixed with bread crumbs, eggs, butter, and spices, topped with candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then slice them and place them in a saucepan.

  2. Add water and stew the apples until tender.

  3. Drain the water and mash the apples with a spoon or fork.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the crumbled bread, sugar to taste, egg yolks, egg whites, grated lemon peel, nutmeg, and butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line the bottom and sides of a baking dish with puff pastry, leaving a rim around the edge.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the dish and garnish with candied citron or lemon peel.

  3. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until the pastry is cooked through.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and a soft, moist body once stewed and mashed.
Stale bread
Absorbs liquid and helps the mashed apple mixture hold together as a pudding.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set as it bakes.
Egg whites
Add lightness and structure, helping the filling set into a tender pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Baking until the pastry is cooked through. The filling sets from the egg proteins while the pastry must brown and cook fully underneath. Too short a bake leaves a wet, underset centre and raw pastry, while too long a bake can dry the custard-like filling and overbrown the edges.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg, 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.

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