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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A boiled pudding made with butter, flour, water, and apples, cooked in a bag for two hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the crust

  1. Rub the butter into the flour until well combined.

  2. Add enough water to form a paste.

  3. Sprinkle flour inside a pudding bag and roll out the paste to fit inside.

Fill and boil

  1. Fill the crust with peeled and cored apples.

  2. Draw the crust together, trim any excess, and tie the bag tightly.

  3. Place the bag in boiling water and boil for 2 hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 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

Butter
Adds fat that shortens the dough, giving it a tender, crumbly texture.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure of the paste that holds the pudding together while it boils.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling, with moisture that softens and sweetens as the pudding cooks.

The step that matters

Tying the bag tightly. If the bag is loose or not sealed, boiling water can seep in and soak the crust, and the filling may leak out. A firm seal keeps the pudding intact and moist during the long boil.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour. 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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