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Dessert

Apple Cracker Pudding

A custard pudding made with stewed apples, crackers, and egg yolks, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Cracker 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. Stew the apples with sugar, raisins, and cinnamon until tender. Set aside to cool.

Make the custard

  1. Beat the egg yolks and 1 cup of sugar until thick like batter.

  2. Add the grated lemon peel and crushed crackers to the egg mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Bake and serve

  1. Grease a pudding dish.

  2. Layer the stewed apples in the dish.

  3. Pour the custard mixture over the apples.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  5. Serve 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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 and moisture that forms the layer under the custard.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help it set into a firm, creamy texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the custard and give it a airy, risen texture.
Crackers
Crushed crackers add body and starch that help thicken the custard mixture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff whites hold the air that lightens the custard. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the pudding stays light instead of deflating and turning dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, raisin, cinnamon, egg, butter, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, raisin, cinnamon, egg, butter, cream. 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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