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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert made from stewed apples, sugar, butter or cream, nutmeg, rose water, and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked 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 apples

  1. Stew the apples in minimal water until tender but not broken.

  2. Drain the apples in a colander and mash them with the back of a spoon.

Make the filling

  1. Once cooled, mix in the nutmeg, rose water, lemon peel, and 2 ounces of sugar.

  2. In a separate bowl, cream the remaining sugar with the butter or cream, then gradually mix it with the apple mixture.

Bake

  1. Bake in puff pastry in a soup dish for about 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Do not add sugar to the top.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Rose + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples
Provide the bulk and moisture of the pudding, set by mashing into a soft filling.
Cream or butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender, smooth texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the filling and dissolves easily into the creamed fat and apples.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness of the apples and sugar.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour to the apple filling.
Rose-water
Adds a delicate floral aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Let the apples cool before mixing in the butter or cream. Adding butter or cream to hot apples can melt the fat and make the filling greasy or loose. Cooling keeps the fat creamed and evenly distributed, so the filling stays smooth and holds its shape in the pastry.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, nutmeg, rose, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, nutmeg, rose, lemon. 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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