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Dessert

Two Apple Puddings

A baked apple pudding made with butter, sugar, eggs, wine, brandy, rose water, spices, and apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Two Apple Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks, wine, brandy, rose water, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  3. Stew the apples with the orange peel until soft, then mash through a colander.

  4. Mix the mashed apples into the other ingredients.

  5. If the mixture is not sufficiently acidic, add the orange juice.

Bake

  1. Bake in a puff pastry at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the filling richness and a tender body.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps cream with butter to trap air.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the filling as they set during baking.
Apples
Provide the main bulk and fruity moisture of the filling once mashed.
Orange juice
Adds acidity to brighten the filling, added only if needed.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Checking the acidity before baking. Egg-thickened fillings can taste flat or cloying if too sweet and rich. Tasting for acidity and adding orange juice only if needed balances sweetness and keeps the flavour lively.

“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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