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Dessert

Apple Pudding, Family Style

A baked apple pudding with bread crumbs, currants, butter, eggs, and milk.

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 ↓

Apple Pudding, Family Style

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. Mix the diced apples with sugar, cinnamon, and lemon rind.

  3. Combine bread crumbs and currants with the apple mixture.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the egg yolks and milk.

  2. Mix the wet ingredients with the crumb and apple mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake until golden.

  2. Serve with wine or brandy 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it as they set.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the milk and butter to form the body of the pudding.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the creamed batter.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness that contrast with the sweet crumb.
Milk
Moistens the crumbs and helps the custard-like batter set in the oven.
Currants
Add small pockets of chewy sweetness throughout the pudding.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped, and stirring them vigorously knocks that air out. Folding gently keeps the batter light so the pudding rises and sets with a soft, airy crumb.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, bread, butter, egg. 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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