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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of sliced apples layered with breadcrumbs, brown sugar, butter, milk, and bread, baked until tender.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Baked Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

Assemble

  1. In a pie dish, layer breadcrumbs, then apples, repeating until the dish is full.

  2. Sprinkle each layer of apples with brown sugar.

  3. Dot the top with pats of butter and pour milk over the layers.

  4. Cover with a layer of thin slices of buttered bread and press a plate firmly on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake slowly until cooked through.

  2. Serve with cream or sweet 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  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

Apples
Provide the main body and tart flavour of the pudding as they soften during baking.
Breadcrumbs
Soak up the milk and juices, giving the pudding a soft, set structure between the fruit layers.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and caramel-like flavour, and helps the apples brown and soften.
Milk
Moistens the breadcrumbs and sets with them into a soft, custardy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the top brown and the pudding taste rounder.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until cooked through. A low oven lets the apples soften and the milk and breadcrumbs set gently without drying out or scorching the top. Rushing with high heat can leave the centre raw while the surface over-browns.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, bread. 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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