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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of pulped apples, sugar, butter, bread crumbs, eggs, and lemon, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Baked Apple 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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the pulped apples, sugar, butter, bread crumbs, egg yolks, and lemon juice and peel until well combined.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the egg white until stiff peaks form, then gently fold it into the apple mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 45 minutes, then turn out onto a serving dish.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 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

Pulped apples
Provide the main body and moisture of the pudding.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while the whipped white lightens its texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the pudding body so it holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, soft crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Stiff peaks trap air that gives the pudding its light rise. Over-mixing or stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving a dense result.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, bread, egg, lemon. 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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