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Dessert

Snow-ball Pudding

A dessert of apples filled with dates or raisins, wrapped in boiled rice, baked, then served with stewed currants or figs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and dates work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Snow-ball Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pare and core the apples, then fill the cavities with dates or raisins.

  3. Wrap the apples in cloths spread with boiled rice.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for one hour.

  2. Before serving, dip the wrapped apples in cold water.

  3. Serve with stewed currants or figs as a sauce.

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. Apple + datestop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Dates + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together139 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Dates + ricetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Large mellow apples
Provide the main body of the pudding, softening into a tender, sweet filling as they bake.
Dates or raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture inside the cored apples.
Boiled rice
Forms a wrapping layer around the apples that helps hold their shape while baking.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, dates, rice):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, dates, rice. 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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