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Dessert

Apple Pudding, Boiled

A boiled apple pudding made with flour, suet, baking powder, apples, sugar, cloves, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Pudding, Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, core, and cut the apples into thick slices.

  2. Make the pastry as directed in the standard recipe.

Assemble the pudding

  1. Reserve a quarter of the pastry for the lid and roll out the rest to line a greased basin.

  2. Place half the apples in the basin, sprinkle with sugar, and add cloves.

  3. Cover with the remaining apples and add cold water.

  4. Roll out the reserved pastry for the lid, moisten the edges, and seal it to the basin.

Cook

  1. If boiling, cover with a floured cloth; if steaming, use two layers of greased paper.

  2. Cook for 2.5 to 3 hours.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Flour
Forms the pastry that encloses the apples and holds the pudding together.
Suet
Adds fat that makes the pastry rich and tender.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the pastry rise and lighten.
Apples
Provide moisture and tartness, cooking down to a soft filling.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and helps flavour the apple filling.

The step that matters

Seal the lid to the basin. A tight seal keeps water out during the long boil or steam and stops the filling from escaping. Gaps let water seep in and make the pastry soggy.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apple, sugar. 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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