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Dessert

Boston Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding with cinnamon, cloves, lemon, sugar, eggs, butter, nutmeg, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Boston Apple 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 the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into small pieces.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with water, cinnamon, cloves, and lemon peel.

  3. Stew over low heat until soft, then sweeten with moist sugar and strain through a fine sieve.

Make the pudding and bake

  1. Add the egg yolks, egg white, butter, grated nutmeg, grated lemon peel, and lemon juice to the apple mixture and beat well.

  2. Line a pie dish with the pie crust, pour in the pudding mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Break down into a soft, sweet base that gives the pudding its body and flavor.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps the pudding set and hold its structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the apple base and adds a deeper, molasses-like flavor.
Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the pudding in the dish while it bakes.

The step that matters

Straining the stewed apples. Stewed apples can keep lumps and fibrous bits. Straining through a fine sieve gives a smooth base, so the beaten eggs and butter blend evenly and the baked pudding sets with an even texture.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, clove, lemon, sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, clove, lemon, sugar, egg, butter, 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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