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Dessert

Apple Custard Pudding

A baked apple custard topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Apple Custard Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the custard

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

  2. In a bowl, mix grated apples, milk or cream, melted butter, orange juice and rind, grated nutmeg, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

Bake and top with meringue

  1. Bake the pudding for 5 to 10 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add 2 tablespoons of sugar to the egg whites to make the meringue.

  4. Spread the meringue over the baked pudding.

  5. Return the pudding to the oven until the meringue is lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Serve cold with cream.

  2. Serve hot without meringue.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide bulk and moisture, and their pectin and acidity give the pudding body and a fresh flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they set, giving the pudding a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam, they form the light meringue that browns on top.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the texture of the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps the meringue become stiff and browned.

The step that matters

Return the pudding to the oven until the meringue is lightly browned. Meringue over-bakes quickly, becoming tough or weeping syrup if left too long. Watch for light golden colour and stop there.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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