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Dessert

Amber Pudding

A baked apple dessert with butter, sugar, lemon, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. In a saucepan, combine apples, butter, sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

  3. Stew the mixture until the apples are tender.

  4. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

Assemble

  1. Line a pie dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the lined pie dish.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 400 °F (200 °C) for 20 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites with sugar.

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

  4. Decorate with dried fruit.

  5. Return to the oven until the icing is pale brown.

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
Cook down into a soft, tender base that gives the filling its body and moisture.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the apple filling, and whipped whites form the light topping.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the whipped egg whites brown in the oven.
Lemon
Zest and juice add aroma and acidity that balance the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Returning the pudding to the oven for the topping. Sugared egg whites brown quickly and can scorch, so the pudding should be checked closely and removed once the topping is pale brown.

Swap the apple

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

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

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