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Apple Pudding

Apple pudding made by baking apples, filling with jelly, and topping with a milk-macaroon sauce.

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

Why it works: Apple and milk 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 ↓

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.

  2. Place them in a pudding dish half filled with water.

  3. Cover the dish.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the apples are tender.

  5. Drain the water.

  6. Fill each apple with jelly.

  7. Season with your preferred spices.

  8. Let the apples cool.

Make the custard

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. Stir in the crushed macaroons, salt, cornstarch, and sugar.

  3. Boil the mixture for 1-2 minutes.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

  5. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  6. Fold them into the cooled mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture over the apples.

  2. Bake for 20-30 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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
Form the tender base that holds the jelly and spices under the custard.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they lighten the custard and help it set with air and structure.
Macaroons
Crushed, they thicken the milk mixture and add a sweet almond flavour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which sets as it bakes.
Cornstarch
Thickens the scalded milk mixture when boiled, giving the custard body.
Jelly
Melts into the apples as they bake, adding sweetness and fruity moisture.

The step that matters

Boil the milk mixture, then cool it before folding in the egg whites. Boiling activates the cornstarch so the mixture thickens. Folding stiff egg whites into a hot mixture would deflate them and cause them to lose their airy structure, so the mixture must cool first.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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