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Dessert

Burnett Pudding

A baked apple pudding with rich pastry lining, sugar, raisins, citron, nutmeg, lemon rind, butter custard, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Burnett 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line a pudding dish with rich pastry.

  3. Stew the apples gently until tender, without breaking them.

  4. Place the apples in the dish and fill them with sugar, raisins, and citron.

  5. Grate nutmeg and lemon rind over the apples.

Make the custard

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add powdered sugar and beaten eggs; mix well.

  3. Stir in the milk.

  4. Cook over boiling water until it thickens like custard.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the custard over the apples.

  2. Bake for 30 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

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

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

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

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide tart flavour and a tender base that holds its shape when stewed.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it body and structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the custard and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Milk
Thins the custard to a pourable consistency and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over boiling water. Gentle indirect heat lets the eggs thicken slowly and evenly. Too much heat can curdle the eggs, leaving the custard grainy rather than smooth.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, raisin, nutmeg, lemon, butter, egg, milk. 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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