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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked apple dessert with a soft dough crust and a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

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 ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the fruit

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

  2. Combine sliced apples, sugar, spices, and lemon juice or vanilla in a dish.

  3. Partially cook the mixture on the stove.

Make the crust

  1. For the crust, mix flour, baking powder, butter, salt, and enough milk to form a soft dough.

  2. Cover the apples with the dough and place on the stove until the crust is light.

  3. Bake in the oven until the crust is golden brown.

Make the sauce and serve

  1. Beat the egg and sugar until light.

  2. Pour boiling water over the mixture until it reaches a cream-like consistency.

  3. Flavor the sauce with vanilla or sprinkle nutmeg on top before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the fruit base, moisture, and tartness that the sweet crust sits on.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the soft dough crust as it sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the crust rise and turn light.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the crust tender and adds richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and the sauce and helps the crust brown.
Egg
Binds and enriches the sauce, adding body when beaten light.

The step that matters

Mixing the crust dough. Mix the dough only until it just comes together. Overworking flour develops gluten, which makes the crust tough, while evenly mixed baking powder is needed for the crust to rise.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, flour, butter, milk. 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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