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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked apple dessert with a buttery batter and a sweet cream sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pudding

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Fill a baking dish with sliced apples.

  3. In a bowl, mix butter, sugar, egg, sweet milk, flour, and baking powder until smooth.

  4. Pour the batter over the apples.

  5. Bake until golden brown.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. For the sauce, cream the butter and gradually add powdered sugar until light.

  2. Add the egg and mix well.

  3. Gradually stir in hot milk and beat until combined.

  4. Serve the pudding warm with the 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 fruit and moisture that soften and flavour the pudding as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the pudding sets rather than staying liquid.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the pudding rise and become light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the pudding and sauce.

The step that matters

Adding hot milk to the sauce. Stirring in milk gradually while beating keeps the creamed butter and sugar emulsified. Adding it all at once can cause the sauce to separate or turn grainy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, sauce, nutmeg. 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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