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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A steamed pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, apples, breadcrumbs, raisins, currants, suet, candied peel, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the eggs, then mix in the milk and flour until smooth.

  3. Stir in the chopped apples.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a greased pudding mold.

  2. Steam for two hours.

  3. Serve hot with sauce or cream.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

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

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

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour and carrying flavour through the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during steaming to give the pudding its structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starches set with heat.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps tenderise the batter when creamed with butter.
Apples
Add moisture and fruity flavour that stays distinct through the steamed batter.

The step that matters

Steaming for two hours. Steaming must be gentle and steady so the batter sets evenly without drying out. Water must be kept topped up, since a low pot can leave the pudding dense or undercooked in the centre.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, apple, raisin. 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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