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Dessert

Melon Pudding

A baked pudding made with apples, melon, breadcrumbs, eggs, milk, butter, sugar, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and melon share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 86 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Melon 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 the fruit

  1. Peel and chop the apples and melon.

  2. Cook the fruit for 15 minutes, adding sugar and the cloves tied in muslin.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a buttered dish, layer breadcrumbs, then fruit, repeating until the dish is full, finishing with breadcrumbs.

  2. Beat the eggs and mix with the milk, then pour over the pudding.

  3. Dot the top with bits of butter and bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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 + melontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together86 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Melon + clovetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together232 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Allinson breadcrumbs
Form the bulk of the pudding and soak up the custard to hold its shape.
Apples
Cooked to a soft pulp, they add moisture and natural sweetness to the layers.
Melon
Adds moisture and mild fruity flavour as it softens during cooking.
Eggs
Set with the milk during baking to bind the pudding into a sliceable custard.
Milk
Makes the custard that soaks the breadcrumbs and keeps the pudding moist.
Butter
Dotted on top, it melts and adds richness and gentle browning to the surface.

The step that matters

Pouring the egg and milk mixture over the pudding. The custard needs to soak evenly through the breadcrumbs before baking. Pouring it over a dish that is too full or unevenly layered can leave dry patches or a soggy base, and the eggs set best when the custard is evenly distributed.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, melon, milk, butter, egg, 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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