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Dessert

Bich Baked Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with apple pulp, sugar, butter, lemon rind, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Bich Baked Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and cut the apples as for sauce.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with just enough water to prevent burning and stew until reduced to a pulp.

  3. Weigh the pulp.

Make the mixture

  1. For every ½ lb. of pulp, add sifted sugar, grated lemon rind, and 6 well-beaten eggs.

  2. Beat these ingredients together well.

  3. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Place a border of puff pastry around the dish.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake for about 30 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apple pulp
Provides the main body and moisture of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a softer, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and balances the tartness of the apples.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, golden border around the baked pudding.
Lemon rind
Adds a bright aroma that lifts the sweetness.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until fully reduced to a pulp. Any remaining chunks or excess liquid will change the texture and moisture of the pudding. Weighing the pulp afterward matters because the sugar and egg amounts are set as a ratio to that weight.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon, 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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