Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Apple Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with sour milk, sour cream, pastry flour, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Cream Apple Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water.

  2. Mix the soda solution with the sour milk and sour cream.

  3. Stir in the pastry flour until just combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Grease a baking pan and cover the bottom with the quartered apples.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar and cinnamon over the apples.

  3. Pour the batter over the apples.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with hard sauce, cream, or milk.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pastry flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter around the apples as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts and lightens the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and tenderness to the crumb.
Sour cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the pudding richer and softer.
Tart apples
Release moisture and flavor as they cook, giving the pudding its fruit character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as the pudding bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in warm water before mixing. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and then combined with the acidic sour milk so it reacts evenly. Undissolved soda leaves bitter spots and uneven rising.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, flour, sugar, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, flour, sugar, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes