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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked dessert made with bread crumbs, suet, apples, currants, brown sugar, almonds, spices, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pudding

  1. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, suet, chopped apples, currants, brown sugar, and chopped almonds.

  2. Add cinnamon and spice to taste.

  3. Fold in the egg whites last.

  4. Transfer the mixture into a well-buttered pudding bag or mold.

Cook

  1. Boil for three 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.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk and absorb moisture so the pudding holds together.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the pudding moist and rich as it cooks.
Apples
Contribute moisture and tartness and soften into the pudding during boiling.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy fruitiness throughout the pudding.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Whites of eggs
Fold in at the end to lighten the mixture and help bind it as it sets.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites last. Gently folding keeps the whites' trapped air, which lightens the dense mixture. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam and makes the pudding heavier.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, apple, sugar, almond, cinnamon, egg. 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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