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Dessert

Apricot Pudding

A baked pudding of apricots, bread crumbs, custard, and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

Apricot 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 dish

  1. Butter a shallow pudding dish.

  2. Sprinkle a layer of soft bread crumbs on the bottom.

  3. Drain the syrup from the apricots.

  4. Arrange a layer of fruit in the dish.

  5. Fill the cavities of the fruit with sugar.

  6. Place a small dot of butter on each piece.

  7. Cover each piece of fruit with another half to simulate whole fruit.

  8. Fill the gaps with soft bread crumbs.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the milk, egg yolks, salt, and sugar.

  2. Pour this mixture over the fruit.

  3. Lift the fruit slightly so the custard reaches all parts of the bread.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Add powdered sugar and lemon juice to the egg whites.

  4. Spread the meringue over the pudding.

  5. Brown the meringue slightly.

  6. Serve hot without sauce.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Apricot + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

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

  5. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Apricots
Provide the fruit base and its sweet, tart flavour.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the custard so the pudding holds together with a soft texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk custard and enrich it, giving a smooth set.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets around the fruit and bread.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances sweetness and helps stabilise the meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to a stiff foam with no trace of yolk or grease, or the meringue will not hold its shape or brown well. Sugar added after whipping helps it stay glossy and stable.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, bread, sugar, butter, milk, 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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