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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding with sugar, currants, raisins, wine, eggs, milk, and kirsch, layered with crushed biscuits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Apple and white wine work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 372 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apple marmalade

  1. Cut the apples into very thin slices.

  2. Boil the sliced apples with sugar, currants, raisins, and white wine for 30 minutes until they mash into a marmalade.

Layer the pudding

  1. Grease the bottom of a deep circular dish with butter.

  2. Layer crushed sugar biscuits at the bottom of the dish.

  3. Add a layer of apple marmalade.

  4. Repeat the biscuit and marmalade layers, ending with a biscuit layer on top, forming a conical shape.

  5. Beat the eggs with milk and kirsch-wasser.

  6. Pour the beaten mixture over the layered pudding.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the dish on a three-legged stand in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

  2. Serve immediately after removing from the oven.

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. Apple + white winetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Raisin + biscuittop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  5. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the custard and set it as the pudding bakes.
Apples
Provide the bulk and fruity body of the marmalade layers.
Sugar biscuits
Form the absorbent layers that soak up the custard and hold the structure.
Milk
Adds liquid to the egg mixture, keeping the custard moist and tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the marmalade and helps it cook down to a thick spread.

The step that matters

Pour the beaten mixture over the layered pudding.. The egg and milk custard must soak through the layers evenly before baking; eggs set as they heat, so uneven pouring can leave dry or runny pockets.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, raisin, white wine, butter, biscuit, 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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