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Dessert

Apple Pudding, No. 1

A baked apple pudding made with apples, butter, sugar, lemon, bread crumbs, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apple Pudding, No. 1

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 apples

  1. Pare and slice the apples.

  2. Stew them in water until soft enough to mash.

Make the pudding

  1. Stir in the butter, sugar, lemon rind, and juice.

  2. In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs with flour, then combine with the apple mixture.

  3. Finally, mix in the beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a buttered pudding dish at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

  2. Serve with hard sauce.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Tart apples
Provide the main body and tart flavor of the pudding once stewed and mashed.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the pudding a soft, set structure.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a soft, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apples and lemon.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma that lift the apple flavor.

The step that matters

Stew the apples until soft enough to mash. Apples that are undercooked stay firm and lumpy, so the pudding will not blend into a smooth, even texture. Cooking them fully breaks down their cell walls so they mash easily and combine evenly with the crumbs and eggs.

Swap the apple

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

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

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