Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Pudding

A steamed apple cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, and chopped apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Apple Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

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

  3. Stir in the chopped apples.

Steam and serve

  1. Steam the mixture for two hours.

  2. 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. Butter + milktop 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a soft, tender texture when creamed with butter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure, helping the pudding hold its shape after steaming.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the pudding as its starches set during cooking.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it cooks through evenly.
Apples
Add moisture, fruity flavour and tender pieces throughout the cake.

The step that matters

Steam the mixture for two hours. Steaming cooks the pudding gently with moist heat, so it sets through without drying out. Keep the water simmering and topped up, since uneven or weak steam can leave the centre underdone or the pudding heavy.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

You might also like

Apple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipesApple TartApple Tart24 recipes