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
Prepare the apples
Peel and core the apples, then slice them.
In a saucepan, combine the apples, sugar, and butter.
Wash the lemon, peel it thinly, and squeeze the juice into the saucepan, adding the peel as well.
Cook the mixture over medium heat until the apples are tender, about 45 minutes.
Set a sieve over a large bowl and pour the cooked apples into it, pressing through with a wooden spoon.
Stir the yolks of the eggs into the apple mixture.
Bake and finish
Line a 1‑pint pie dish with puff paste.
Pour the apple mixture into the lined dish and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes.
Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form.
Once the pudding is light brown, spread the whipped egg whites on top and sprinkle with sugar.
Return the dish to the oven until the icing is light brown; the pudding is then ready to serve.
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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Lemon + buttertop 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
- Break down into a soft purée that forms the body of the pudding.
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and thicken the filling; whites whipped to stiff peaks form the browned topping.
- Butter
- Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the cooked apples.
- Moist sugar
- Sweetens the filling and contributes a caramel note as it cooks down.
- Puff paste
- Forms the crisp pastry lining that holds the filling in the dish.
The step that matters
Topping the pudding at the right colour. Whipped egg whites are a meringue-style topping that sets and browns in the oven. Spreading them too early, before the base is set, can make them slide or weep, and removing the dish too soon leaves the topping pale and under-cooked.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, butter, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Orangefits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, 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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