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Dessert

Rich Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of apples, sugar, lemon, cinnamon, and egg yolks in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Rich Baked Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and core the apples, then place them in a saucepan with water.

  2. Boil the apples until soft and thick, then beat them well.

  3. Stir in the sugar, lemon juice, lemon peel, oil of cinnamon, and beaten egg yolks.

  4. Mix everything together and pour it into a puff pastry shell.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until nearly done, then sprinkle with grated sugar before serving.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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
Cooked down to a soft, thick base that gives the pudding its body and fruity flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set, giving it a rich, custard-like texture.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it stay moist and tender as it bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the rich yolks.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Beating the cooked apples and adding the egg yolks. If the apple mixture is still very hot when the yolks go in, the yolks can scramble rather than blend smoothly. Beating the apples well first gives an even base so the yolks thicken the filling evenly as it bakes.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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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