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Dessert

Batter Fruit Pudding

A pudding made by boiling apples in a batter of flour, eggs, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Batter Fruit Pudding

Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Batter Fruit Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Butter a basin that holds 1½ pints and fill it nearly to the brim with the prepared apples.

Make and cook the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, eggs, and milk to create a batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the apples in the basin.

  3. Tie a buttered and floured cloth over the basin tightly.

  4. Boil the pudding for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn the pudding out onto a hot dish and sprinkle sugar generously over it.

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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 fruit filling and moisture that softens during the long boil.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it sets around the apples instead of running off.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm as it cooks.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture for a tender, pourable mixture.

The step that matters

Tie the cloth tightly over the basin. A loose cloth lets water seep in during boiling, making the pudding soggy and diluting the batter. A snug, floured and buttered cover keeps water out and helps the pudding release cleanly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, 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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