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Dessert

Apple Meringue Pudding

A baked pudding made with bread crumbs, milk, eggs, sugar, butter, apples, topped with meringue.

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 ↓

Apple Meringue Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Soak the bread crumbs in 1 pint of milk.

  2. Add the soaked bread crumbs, egg yolks, sugar, melted butter, and grated apples to a mixing bowl, then mix well and pour into a baking dish.

  3. Bake until set.

Top and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form to make the meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pudding and bake until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Soak up the milk to form a soft, custard-like body for the pudding.
Egg yolks
Thicken the base as it sets and add richness.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form a light, airy meringue topping.
Grated apples
Add moisture and fruity flavor, and soften during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue stay glossy and stable.

The step that matters

Whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need to be whipped until stiff peaks form so the meringue holds its volume and turns light and golden. Under-whipped whites will weep and sink into the pudding.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, egg, sugar, 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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