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Dessert

Apples and Almonds, Pudding of

A baked pudding made with stewed apples, almonds, sugar, flour, lemon, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apples and Almonds, Pudding of

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apples until they are a pulp, then sweeten and flavor them.

  2. Lay the apple mixture at the bottom of a well-buttered dish.

  3. Blanch and pound the almonds.

Make the topping

  1. Mix the almonds with sugar, flour, lemon rind, lemon juice, and beaten eggs.

  2. Spread the almond mixture over the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for about 40 minutes.

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. Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Baking apples
Cook down to a pulp to form the moist, sweet base of the pudding.
Eggs
Bind the almond mixture and set during baking to give the topping structure.
Sweet almonds
Provide the rich, nutty body and texture of the topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the topping and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the almond mixture so it holds together as it bakes.
Lemon
Its rind adds aroma and its juice adds acidity to brighten the sweet dish.

The step that matters

Stewing the apples to a pulp. Apples must be cooked fully soft so the base is smooth and not watery. Excess moisture left in the fruit would thin the custard-like topping and keep it from setting properly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, flour, lemon, 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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