Why it works: Apple and cider are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,238 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓
Hot Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the bread and cherry pudding
Put fruit, cherries preferred, in six well-buttered cups.
Pour in the batter.
Steam forty minutes.
Serve hot with milk or any palatable sauce.
Butter lightly slices of stale bread.
Cut in small pieces and dip into milk.
Place in the bottom of the pudding-dish a layer of bread.
Cover with stoned cherries.
Fill the dish with alternate layers of bread and cherries, having bread on top.
Bake two hours very slowly.
Serve with a hard sauce of butter and sugar, flavored as desired.
Make the apple pudding
Take a quart of finely sliced apples, place in a deep pie plate.
Sprinkle with sugar and nutmeg.
Make a very rich biscuit dough, cover the apples with it, and bake until the apples are soft, from one-half to three-quarters of an hour.
Turn out on a hot plate; this brings the apples on top.
Sprinkle with more sugar and cover with the sauce.
Serve hot.
Make the sauce
Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg, add a large tablespoonful of flour, stir until smooth.
Add one-quarter of a cup of boiled cider, one tablespoonful of molasses, and three tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Mix all together, and add enough boiling water to make a sauce the consistency of a very thick custard.
Bake the rest
Grated rind and juice of one orange, mix and bake.
Put the ingredients together without swelling the rice.
Bake, very slowly, two hours; stir often at first.
Mix the dry ingredients, and put twice through a sieve.
Rub the butter through this mixture; then wet with the milk.
Butter a large deep pie plate.
Divide the dough into two parts, and roll out the size of the plate.
Lay them in the plate, one on top of the other, and bake in a quick oven.
Take from the oven and tear gently apart; place the under one on a warm plate.
Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)
Counts 11 of 13 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.
What these numbers assume: 11 portions
| Ingredient | Portion assumed | kcal |
|---|---|---|
| Flour | 1 cup (125g) all-purpose | 455 |
| Milk | 1 cup (244ml) whole | 149 |
| Lard | 1 tbsp (12.8g) | 115 |
| Butter | 1 tbsp (14g) | 102 |
| Apple | 1 medium (182g) | 95 |
| Egg | 1 large egg (50g) | 78 |
| Orange | 1 medium (131g) | 62 |
| Molasses | 1 tbsp (20g) | 58 |
| Sugar | 1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated | 49 |
| Nutmeg | 1 tsp ground (2.2g) | 12 |
| Salt | 1 tsp (6g) | 0 |
| Cider | not in our table | 0 |
| Pudding | not in our table | 0 |
One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.
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. See the original page.
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.
-
Apple + cidertop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,238 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the biscuit dough and thickens the sauce base.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the dough and sauce.
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling that softens during baking and becomes tender.
- Stale bread (in the method)
- Soaked in milk, it absorbs liquid and sets into a soft, custardy layer.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the sauce and topping caramelize lightly.
- Boiled cider
- Adds concentrated acidity and fruity flavor to the sauce.
The step that matters
Rub the butter through the dry ingredients before adding the milk. Rubbing cold fat into flour coats the particles and keeps the dough short and flaky, while adding liquid too early develops gluten and makes it tough.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cider, molasses):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, milk, egg, cider, molasses. 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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