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Dessert

Apple-puff Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with a flour batter, milk, eggs, and sliced apples, topped with butter and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple-puff 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 batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour and salt.

  2. Gradually stir in milk until smooth.

  3. Add eggs and mix well.

Assemble

  1. Grease a pie dish with butter.

  2. Pour the batter into the dish.

  3. Seed and slice the apples, then add them to the batter.

  4. Dot the top with bits of butter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Once done, sprinkle sugar on top and serve hot.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and rise into a puffed custard.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the pudding its tender texture.
Apples
Add moisture and a fruity, slightly tart flavor that contrasts the rich batter.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and browns the top as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes. Baking long enough lets the egg proteins set so the batter puffs and firms, while stopping early leaves it wet in the centre. Over-baking can make the custard dry and rubbery.

Swap the apple

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

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

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