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Dessert

Apple Chocolate Pudding

A baked dessert of sliced apples with sugar, cinnamon, currants, and a chocolate custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Apple Chocolate 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 apples

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

  2. Slice the apples finely and mix with 1 cup of sugar, cinnamon, and currants.

  3. Place the mixture in a buttered pudding dish and add 1 cup of water.

  4. Bake in the oven until the apples are soft.

Make the custard and bake

  1. While the apples cool, prepare the custard by mixing grated chocolate, 1 cup of sugar, vanilla, and egg yolks.

  2. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the custard over the apples and bake for an additional 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Serve hot or cold with whipped cream.

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. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 the bulk and soft, moist fruit base of the pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped to a froth, they lighten the custard and help it rise and set softly.
Egg yolks
Thicken the chocolate custard and add richness as it sets in the oven.
Grated chocolate
Gives the custard its chocolate flavour and a rich, dense body.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and custard and helps soften the fruit.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to a froth; folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps the air in so the custard stays light instead of deflating and turning dense.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla, egg):

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, chocolate, vanilla, egg. 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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