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Dessert

Apple Custard Pudding

A baked apple custard made with apples, lemon rind, sugar, water, butter, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and boil the apples with the lemon rind, sugar, and water until soft enough to pass through a sieve.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

Make the pudding

  1. Add a little butter and the whisked egg whites, then beat until smooth and firm.

  2. Turn the mixture into a well-buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. Sift a little sugar over the top before serving.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cooked and sieved to form the smooth, moist body of the pudding.
Eggs
Whites are beaten and folded in to lighten and set the pudding as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple base and adds a little sugar on top for contrast.
Butter
Adds richness and helps keep the baked pudding tender.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until smooth and firm. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to the right stiffness. Underbeaten whites leave a dense pudding, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy and may not blend evenly into the apple base.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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