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Dessert

Steamed Apple Pudding

A steamed dessert made with apples, sugar, nutmeg, butter, milk, and a baking powder dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Steamed Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the apples until tender.

  2. Season the apples with sugar, nutmeg, and a little butter.

  3. Fill a pudding dish two-thirds full with the seasoned apples.

Cover and steam

  1. Make a baking powder dough about ½ inch thick and cover the dish with it.

  2. Steam for 30 to 45 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately with sugar and cream or a hot 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and tender texture of the pudding filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the apple flavour.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the steamed dough, helping it rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour in the dough so it holds together and cooks through.

The step that matters

Steam for 30 to 45 minutes. The dough must cook through in steam without drying out. Steam keeps the surface moist, and the baking powder needs enough heat and time to lift the dough before it sets.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, milk. 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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