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Dessert

Apple Amber Pudding

A steamed pudding made with bread crumbs, flour, suet, apples, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Amber Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, flour, suet, chopped apple, granulated sugar, lemon zest, nutmeg, and eggs.

  2. Mix well until all ingredients are combined.

  3. Grease a mold with butter and pour the mixture into it.

Cook

  1. Boil the mold in water for 2½ hours.

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

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and body that hold the pudding together.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set it as it cooks, giving structure.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and tender as it steams.
Flour
Helps thicken the batter and gives the pudding a firmer structure.
Chopped apple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness throughout the pudding.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the pudding a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Boil the mold in water for 2½ hours. The mold must stay submerged in gently simmering water for the full time so the pudding cooks through evenly. Water that boils dry or drops too low can leave the centre undercooked and the texture uneven.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, flour, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, egg, butter. 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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