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Dessert

Birds' Nest Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with milk, flour, eggs, and apples, served with a butter and sugar sauce flavored with sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Birds' Nest Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour with the milk slowly to avoid lumps.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and the apples to the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Stir for 15 to 20 minutes after placing in a baked oven at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes.

  3. Serve with a sauce made of butter and sugar rubbed to a cream, flavored with sherry wine.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Milk
Forms the liquid base of the pudding, supplying moisture for the batter to set around.
Flour
Thickens the milk and gives the pudding its body and structure as it bakes.
Eggs
Set as the pudding bakes, binding the batter and giving it a custard-like firmness.
Apples
Soften during baking and add tartness and moisture to the pudding.

The step that matters

Mixing the flour into the milk slowly. Flour added quickly to liquid forms clumps, because the outer layer of each starch particle hydrates before the inside can. Adding it slowly while mixing keeps the batter smooth.

Swap the apple

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

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

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