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Dessert

Apple-sago Pudding

A baked dessert of apples and sago cooked in water with sugar and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple-sago 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

  1. Wash the tapioca or sago and cover it with water, adding a little salt.

  2. Pare and slice the apples, placing them in a dish with sugar to taste.

  3. Add the soaked sago to the apples and fill the dish with cold water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the apples are thoroughly cooked, stirring occasionally.

  2. Cover the pudding while cooking to prevent drying out.

  3. Bake for two hours or more, depending on the quality of the apples.

  4. Turn out of the dish while hot and serve warm or cold with sugar and 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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

Tapioca or sago
Swells as it soaks and cooks, giving the pudding its thick, soft body.
Apples
Soften during baking and provide the fruit flavour and bulk of the pudding.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and the pudding, balancing the tartness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Covering the pudding while it bakes. Covering traps steam so the top does not dry out during the long bake, keeping the sago moist and tender while the apples cook through.

“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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