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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with flour, butter, milk, eggs, apples, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Mix the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar in a bowl.

  3. Beat the egg and mix it with the milk, then stir this into the dry mixture.

  4. Core, peel, and cut the apples into quarters (eighths if large).

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the apples in the bottom of a pudding dish and sprinkle with sugar and optional spices.

  2. Pour the batter over the apples, lifting them with a fork to let the mixture penetrate.

  3. Bake for about 80 minutes until set.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon sauce or thin custard.

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

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

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

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

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the batter's structure once it is mixed with liquid and set by heat.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the pudding rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts with the baking soda as an acid to produce lift in the batter.
Tart apples
Provide acidity and moisture that cut the sweetness and soften as they bake.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter over the apples. Lifting the apples with a fork lets the batter reach down between the fruit so the pudding bakes evenly and binds to the apples rather than sitting as a separate layer on top.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, milk, cream, apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, milk, cream, apple, sugar. 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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