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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of stewed apples mixed with bread crumbs, sugar, eggs, lemon, and candied peel, topped with pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA warm oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Slice the apples and place them in a saucepan with the water. Stew until tender.

  2. Drain the water and mash the apples until smooth.

Make the filling

  1. Mix in the bread crumbs and powdered sugar.

  2. Whisk the eggs and egg yolks, then add to the apple mixture along with lemon peel, nutmeg, and candied lemon peel.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry and create an edge with more pastry.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the center and top with additional candied lemon peel or citron slices.

  3. Bake in a warm oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cooked and mashed to form the soft, moist body of the pudding.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the apple mixture into a firm, sliceable custard.
Bread crumbs
Absorb excess moisture from the apples and help thicken the filling.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky crust that holds the filling in the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the pudding.

The step that matters

Stewing and mashing the apples. Apples must be fully tender and drained before mashing, otherwise excess water thins the filling and keeps the eggs from setting firmly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg, butter):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, egg, lemon, nutmeg, butter. 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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