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Dessert

Apple Pudding

A boiled apple pudding made with lard or suet, apples, sugar, lemon peel, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make a paste with lard or suet.

  2. Line a basin with the paste, keeping it thin.

Fill and seal

  1. Fill the basin with the prepared apples.

  2. Add sugar, pounded lemon peel, and pounded cloves.

  3. Cover the basin with more paste.

  4. Tie a cloth tightly over the basin.

Cook

  1. Boil slowly for at least 2 hours.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lard or suet
Forms a rich paste that holds the pudding together and adds tenderness and fat.
Apples
Provide the main filling, softening into moist, tender pieces as they cook.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic citrus oils that brighten the flavour of the filling.
Cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma to the apple filling.

The step that matters

Tie a cloth tightly over the basin. A tight seal keeps water out of the pudding while it boils. Loose covering lets water in and dilutes the filling, and steam trapped under the cloth cooks the pudding evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove. 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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