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Dessert

Marlborough Pudding

A baked apple pudding with sugar, eggs, lemon, and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Marlborough Pudding

Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Marlborough Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a pie dish with pastry.

Make and bake the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine grated apple, sugar, beaten eggs, lemon juice, and grated rind.

  2. Pour the mixture into the lined pie dish.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until set and golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Eggs
Bind the filling and set into a custard-like texture as they bake.
Grated apple
Adds moisture and body to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden. The eggs thicken the filling as they heat. Underbaked, the centre stays runny; overbaked, the eggs can turn grainy and weep liquid. Look for the filling to firm at the edges and no longer slosh when the dish is gently moved.

Swap the apple

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

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

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