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Dessert

Amber Pudding

A baked apple dessert with butter, sugar, lemon, eggs, and short pastry, topped with whipped egg whites and glace fruits.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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

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. Peel, core, and slice the apples into a pan.

  2. Add butter, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice to the pan.

  3. Cover the pan.

  4. Cook gently until the apples are tender.

  5. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  6. Let the mixture cool.

  7. Once cool, add the egg yolks.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with short pastry.

  2. Decorate the edges of the pastry.

  3. Pour the apple mixture into the pastry.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C).

Top and finish

  1. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar to the whipped egg whites.

  3. Pile the whipped egg whites on top of the pudding.

  4. Garnish with glace fruits.

  5. Return to a 300°F (150°C) oven to set.

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

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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
Cooks down into a soft purée that forms the body of the filling.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling, while whipped whites add lightness to the topping.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the whipped egg whites hold their structure.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the apple mixture.
Short pastry
Forms a crisp base that holds the apple filling.

The step that matters

Once cool, add the egg yolks.. If the apple mixture is still hot, the yolks can scramble instead of blending smoothly and thickening the filling evenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, egg, 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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