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Dessert

New England Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with stewed apples, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon, and optional sweet cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

New England Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

  1. Stew the tart apples and strain through a colander to get 4 cups of apple puree.

Make the pudding

  1. While the puree is hot, stir in ½ cup of butter and 2 cups of sugar.

  2. Add 4-5 well-beaten eggs, reserving the egg whites for the topping.

  3. Flavor the mixture with the juice of 1 lemon and pour into deep plates.

  4. Bake until set.

Top and serve

  1. If desired, top with a meringue made from the reserved egg whites.

  2. Serve warm, optionally with 1 cup of sweet 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples
Provides the main body, moisture and tart flavor of the pudding.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds moisture to the puree.
Eggs
Set when baked, giving the pudding its structure and custard-like body.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright aroma that balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the pudding loose and overbaking makes it dry and rubbery. Check that the centre is firm with only a slight wobble, since it keeps setting as it cools.

Swap the apple

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

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

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