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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of sliced apples layered in dough with sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Baked Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, and lard until crumbly. Add milk and work the mixture into a smooth dough.

  3. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick and line a greased baking dish with it.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer sliced apples in the dish, sprinkling each layer with sugar and cinnamon. Finish the top layer with sugar, cinnamon, small pieces of butter, and a few teaspoons of water.

  2. Roll out remaining dough thinly and cover the dish, sealing the edges. Make 3-4 slits in the top crust for steam to escape.

  3. Bake for 1 to 1.5 hours, until a fork easily penetrates the pudding. Serve hot with 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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough and structure that holds the pudding together.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and crumbly rather than tough.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and lightens.
Sliced apples
Provide the main filling, releasing moisture and tartness as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelise slightly at the edges.

The step that matters

Sealing the top crust and making steam slits. A sealed edge keeps juices in the filling, and slits let steam escape so the crust does not swell or turn soggy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, 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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