Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Gingerbread Pudding

A baked apple pudding with gingerbread batter and a boiled water sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Gingerbread Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Layer the sliced apples in a baking pan.

  3. Season the apples with sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, melted butter, ginger, baking soda, boiling water, and milk.

  2. Add flour gradually until you achieve a thin batter consistency.

  3. Pour the batter over the apples in the baking pan.

Make the sauce and bake

  1. Beat together the egg, sugar, and a pinch of salt for the sauce.

  2. Pour the sauce over the pudding and add 1 cup of boiling water on top.

  3. Bake until set and 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Binds the pudding and helps it set into a firm, sliceable texture.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to lighten the batter and aid rising.
Sliced apples
Provide fruit moisture and tartness that balances the sweet, spiced batter.
Flour
Provides structure so the batter sets as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the batter over the apples without stirring them together. Keeping the thin batter as a separate layer over the apples lets the pudding bake into distinct layers, with the batter setting around the fruit rather than sinking into it.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, molasses, butter, ginger, milk, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, molasses, butter, ginger, milk, 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipes