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Dessert

Apple and Marmalade Pudding

A baked pudding of tender apples layered with marmalade and bread, served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 303 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple and Marmalade Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the apple filling

  1. Pare and quarter the apples.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with water and lemon peel.

  3. Cook slowly until the apples are tender.

  4. Remove the lemon peel and add sugar.

  5. Continue cooking until the mixture reduces by half, stirring occasionally.

Assemble and bake

  1. Butter a tin mold and cut a piece of bread to fit the bottom.

  2. Cut strips of bread and dip them in melted butter.

  3. Line the mold with the bread strips.

  4. Pour half of the apple mixture into the mold.

  5. Add a layer of marmalade over the apple mixture.

  6. Add the remaining apples on top of the marmalade.

  7. Cover with a piece of bread dipped in butter.

  8. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for one hour.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding out of the mold.

  2. Serve cold with cream.

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. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 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

Tart apples
Provide the main body of the filling, softening into a tender, spoonable fruit mass.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, as the mixture reduces, helps thicken and concentrate the filling.
Bread
Forms a sturdy shell around the filling that holds its shape when the pudding is turned out.
Butter
Coats the bread so it browns and crisps in the oven and does not stick to the mold.
Marmalade
Adds a sharp, fruity layer that contrasts with the sweet apples.

The step that matters

Reducing the apple mixture. Cooking until the mixture reduces by half concentrates the sugar and pectin and drives off water. If the filling stays too wet, it can soak the bread and make the pudding soggy and hard to unmold.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, butter, bread, peach, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, bread, peach, cream. 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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