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Dessert

A Rich Apple-Pudding

A baked apple pudding made with grated apples, butter, eggs, orange‑flower water, brandy, and candied peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

A Rich Apple-Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Grate the apples and mix with softened butter until creamy.

  2. Add the grated lemon rind, beaten eggs, orange-flower water, brandy, and sugar; mix well.

  3. If apples are not tart enough, add a little lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Line a baking dish with pastry and sprinkle candied peel over it.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the dish and bake for 30 minutes.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  3. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main bulk and moisture, and their tartness balances the sweetness.
Butter
Adds richness and a creamy, tender texture to the filling.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Pastry
Forms the base that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Tasting the apples for tartness. Apples vary in acidity, and sugar is added to taste. Without enough acidity the pudding can taste flat and cloying, so check before baking and add lemon juice if needed.

Swap the apple

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

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

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