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Dessert

Apple Pudding Pie

A baked apple pie with clarified butter, cream, bread crumbs, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apple Pudding Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the sugar and 2 eggs together until well combined.

  2. Add the stewed apples, clarified butter, cream, bread crumbs, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie dish and bake in the oven until set.

Top and brown

  1. While the pie is baking, beat the 2 egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the beaten egg whites on top of the pie after it has baked.

  3. Return the pie to the oven and brown the top slightly.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples
Provide the main body and moisture of the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Clarified butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, helping the filling bake soft and smooth.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the egg whites hold stiff peaks.
Egg whites
Beaten with sugar, they form a light meringue that browns on top.

The step that matters

Brown the top slightly after adding the meringue. Egg white meringue can weep or over-brown quickly in the oven, so watching it closely keeps the topping light and golden rather than dry or burnt.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, cream, bread, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, cream, bread, nutmeg. 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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