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Dessert

Apple Custard Puddings

A baked apple custard pudding made with apples, sugar, butter, lemon, bread crumbs, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apple Custard Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the apple base

  1. Combine the apples and water in a stew-pan.

  2. Cook until the apples are soft.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar, butter, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  4. Mix the bread crumbs and flour in a separate bowl.

  5. Add the crumb mixture to the apple mixture.

  6. Stir in the beaten eggs until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-buttered pudding dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with sugar and cream or hard sweet 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

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

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Apples
Provide the main body and fruit flavour as they soften during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it into a custard-like texture when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, cake-like body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples and lemon.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten eggs until well combined. If the eggs are not fully mixed in, pockets of uncooked egg can remain, and the pudding may set unevenly. Blending them evenly gives a uniform custard set during baking.

Swap the apple

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

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

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