Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Batter Pudding

A baked apple dish covered in a sweet batter, served hot with wine sauce or cold with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Batter Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Prepare the compote of small-sized apples and place one in each individual pudding dish.

  2. Fill the core of each apple with sugar, butter, and some raisins or currants.

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of milk, 4 ounces of butter, and 6 ounces of sugar to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 10 ounces of sifted flour.

  3. Gradually work in 8 whole eggs and thin the mixture with 1 more pint of milk.

  4. Add a pinch of salt, the grated rind of 1 lemon, and a little mace.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover the apples with the batter and bake until set.

  2. Serve hot with wine sauce or cold with sweetened whipped cream.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Set the batter as they cook, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like body.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture and rich flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the batter, adding moisture that turns to a soft set when baked.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart fruit flavour that contrasts with the sweet batter.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the batter runny, while overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Watch for a firm top and a centre that barely jiggles.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blackberryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, milk, flour, egg, lemon. 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 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes