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Dessert

Amber Pudding

A baked apple pudding with butter, sugar, lemon, and egg, topped with whipped egg white icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Amber 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 apples

  1. Core and quarter the apples.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with butter, sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Stew until soft.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Mix in the beaten egg yolk.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a small pie dish with butter and sprinkle with bread crumbs.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the dish.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.

Top and finish

  1. Whisk the egg white until firm.

  2. Pile the whipped egg white on the pudding.

  3. Sprinkle with caster sugar.

  4. Return to the oven until the icing is set.

  5. Serve immediately, preferably with 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and fruit flavour of the pudding once stewed and sieved.
Egg yolk
Enriches the sieved apple mixture, adding richness and helping it set when baked.
Egg white
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, crisp topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the stewed apples, giving a smoother, rounder flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps the caster sugar topping brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg white until firm. Egg white must be whipped to stiff peaks so it holds its shape on the pudding and forms a light, set meringue-like topping. Under-whipped white will slump and turn runny, while the sugar should be added only after it is well beaten.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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