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Dessert

Dried Apple Pudding

A baked pudding made with dried apples, sugar, lemon essence, eggs, and bread crumbs, served with sauce or syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Dried Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsThe hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash the dried apples thoroughly and place them in a pot with enough cold water to cover them by one inch.

  2. Heat the pot slowly on the back of the stove, stirring occasionally until the apples are very soft and have absorbed the water.

  3. Add the sugar, lemon essence, and beaten eggs to the softened apples and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a deep pudding dish and layer it with bread crumbs and the apple mixture until filled, finishing with a layer of bread crumbs on top.

  2. Cover the dish and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 45 minutes.

  3. Remove the cover and brown the top of the pudding.

  4. Serve with a liquid sauce, syrup, or sugar.

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

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

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Dried apples
Provide the main body and flavor of the pudding once softened and cooked down with water.
Eggs
Bind the softened apples and bread crumbs so the pudding sets when baked.
Stale bread crumbs
Form the layers and absorb moisture, giving the pudding its structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during the final browning step.

The step that matters

Softening the dried apples. If the apples are not cooked until very soft and fully hydrated, they stay tough and the pudding will have uneven texture. Slow heating lets the fruit absorb water evenly without scorching on the pot's base.

Swap the apple

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

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

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