Name: Baked Apple Pudding, or Custard
Ingredients: 1 lb good boiling apples, peeled and cored; 6 oz sugar; 1 cup water; 3 oz butter; juice and grated rind of 1 lemon; 5 eggs, yolks only; 2 teaspoons flour or 3-4 crushed Naples biscuits or macaroons

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Apple Pudding, or Custard

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.

Prepare the filling

Stew the apples with sugar and water until smooth, stirring often.
While hot, mix in the butter, lemon juice, and rind.
Gradually stir in the egg yolks and flour or crushed biscuits.

Bake and serve

Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes at 350°F (175°C) until firm in the middle.
For extra flavor, drizzle clarified butter on top and sprinkle with sugar 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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Boiling apples: Break down into a smooth pulp that forms the body of the pudding.
Eggs: Egg yolks thicken and set the mixture as it bakes, giving it a firm, custard-like texture.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, giving the pudding a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Sugar: Sweetens the pudding and helps brown the surface slightly as it bakes.
Flour or crushed biscuits: Adds body and helps the mixture hold its shape when baked.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the egg yolks. Adding yolks slowly to the warm apple mixture helps them blend evenly without scrambling. Even distribution gives a smooth, uniformly set pudding rather than curdled streaks.

Swap the apple

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

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

Apple Pudding256 recipes

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

Lemon Sherbet103 recipes

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Baked Apple Pudding, or Custard