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Dessert

Steamed Apple Pudding

A steamed apple pudding topped with a biscuit crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Steamed Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Fill a 2‑quart pan two‑thirds full with apples.

  2. Add ½ cup of water if the apples are not juicy.

  3. Sprinkle the apples with ½ cup of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon.

  4. Butter the edge of the pan and the inside of the cover.

Make and steam the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 pint of flour, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, ½ teaspoon of salt, 3 tablespoons of butter, and 2 teaspoons of sugar.

  2. Add enough milk to make a soft dough and cover the apples with this biscuit crust.

  3. Steam for 1½ hours.

Serve

  1. Serve with lemon, molasses, or hard 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

Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and becomes sweet and aromatic as it steams.
Flour
Forms the structure of the biscuit crust that covers the apples.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the crust rises and stays light.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crust and gives it a rich flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and baking powder into a soft dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and adds a little browning and flavour to the crust.

The step that matters

Steam for 1½ hours. The pan must stay covered and steam must be kept steady so the crust cooks through and turns light rather than gummy. Lifting the lid lets steam escape and cools the dough.

Swap the apple

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

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

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