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Dessert

Apple Pudding

Apple pudding is a baked dessert made with butter, sugar, eggs, spices, stewed apples, grated bread, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

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

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

Make the pudding

  1. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, mace or nutmeg, stewed apples, and grated bread. Mix well.

  3. Stir in the wine and combine all ingredients thoroughly.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the pudding a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to give the pudding its firm structure.
Stewed apples
Add moisture and fruity flavour, keeping the pudding soft and tender.
Grated bread
Absorbs liquid and helps give the pudding body as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour the mixture into a pudding dish and bake until set. Baking gently until the eggs just set is what turns the loose batter into a firm pudding. Overbaking at high heat can make eggs curdle and turn dry or rubbery.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, apple, bread, wine. 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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