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Dessert

Boston Apple Pudding

Boston Apple Pudding is a baked apple custard with cream, eggs, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Boston Apple 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 apples

  1. Stew the apples with sugar, water, and cinnamon until soft.

  2. Mash the mixture through a sieve.

Make the pudding

  1. Stir in lemon juice, hot cream, egg yolks, egg white, and melted butter.

  2. Line a pudding dish with rich pastry or butter a pudding dish.

  3. Pour in the mixture and bake until firm at 350°F (175°C).

Serve

  1. Serve with cream, hot or cold.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sour apples
Provide the main body and tart flavor that balances the sugar.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set firm when baked.
Egg white
Adds structure and lightness so the baked pudding holds its shape.
Hot cream
Adds richness and moisture, giving the pudding a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them stew to a soft, smooth purée.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a silkier mouthfeel in the baked pudding.

The step that matters

Baking until firm. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the pudding must be baked until just firm. Overbaking can make it curdled and watery, while underbaking leaves it loose in the centre.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon, cream, egg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, cream, egg, butter. 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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