Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Amber 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
Peel and core the apples.
Slice the apples.
In a saucepan, combine the apples, moist sugar, and butter.
Wipe the lemon, peel it thinly, and cut it in half.
Squeeze the juice into the saucepan and add the peel.
Stew the apples until tender, about 45 minutes.
Make the filling
Place a sieve over a large bowl.
Pour the apples into the sieve.
Rub the apples through with a wooden spoon.
Stir in the yolks of the eggs.
Bake and finish
Line a pie dish with puff paste.
Pour the apple mixture into the dish.
Bake for 20 minutes at 350°F (175°C).
Whip the egg whites until stiff.
When the pudding is light brown, remove it from the oven.
Spread the whipped egg whites on top.
Sift castor sugar over it.
Return the dish to the oven until the icing is light brown.
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.
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the bulk of the filling and, once stewed and pressed, a soft, sweet base.
- Moist sugar
- Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelise to the amber colour of the filling.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the stewed apples a smoother, rounder texture.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple filling.
- Eggs
- Yolks thicken the apple mixture and whites, whipped, form the light topping.
The step that matters
Rub the apples through the sieve. Pressing cooked apples through a sieve removes lumps and skins, giving the smooth texture the pudding needs before the eggs are stirred in.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, lemon, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon, 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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