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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked apple dessert with jelly, custard, and macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then place them in a pudding dish half filled with water.

  2. Cover the dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the apples are tender.

  3. Drain the water, fill each apple with jelly, and season with your preferred spices.

  4. Let the apples cool.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk, then stir in the crushed macaroons, salt, corn starch, and sugar.

  2. Boil the mixture for 1-2 minutes, then let it cool.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold them into the cooled mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the apples and bake for 20-30 minutes.

  2. Serve with 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Apple + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Hold their shape while softening, providing the fruit base that the jelly and spices flavor.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness, they trap air and set into a light, airy pudding texture.
Macaroons
Crushed into the milk, they add body and a sweet, almond-toasted flavor to the custard.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens and sets as it bakes.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture when boiled, giving the custard a smooth, stable body.

The step that matters

Folding the beaten egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff and folded in gently, not stirred. Deflating the foam loses the air that gives the pudding its lightness.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, corn, sugar, 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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