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Dessert

Apple Custard Pudding

A baked apple custard pudding made with apples, sugar, butter, lemon, flour, bread crumbs, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mackay, L. Gertrude. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 Custard Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Add one-half cup of water to one quart of peeled and quartered apples and stew until soft. Remove from the fire.

Mix the pudding

  1. Add one-half cup of sugar, two tablespoons of butter, and the juice and grated rind of one lemon.

  2. Mix two tablespoons of flour with two cups of fine bread crumbs.

  3. Stir the flour and bread crumb mixture into the apple mixture.

  4. Add the well-beaten whites of two eggs.

  5. Pour into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for forty-five minutes in a moderate oven.

  2. Serve with hard sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

696Calories
20 gProtein
18 gFat
112 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mackay, L. Gertrude. [from old catalog]. 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. 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Apples (in the method)
Provide the bulk and fruity flavor of the pudding and soften into a moist base.
Eggs
Beaten whites add air and help the pudding set as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the apple mixture so it holds together rather than running.
Bread crumbs
Add body and soak up liquid, giving the pudding a tender, soft structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the apples and lemon.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Adding the well-beaten egg whites. Beaten whites trap air that lifts and lightens the pudding in the oven. Stirring them in too hard knocks the air out, so fold them in gently and bake promptly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, bread, 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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