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Dessert

Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert of stewed apples topped with a butter, sugar, flour, and egg mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Baked Apple 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 the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then stew them in a pan with a little water, sugar, cloves, and grated lemon peel until soft.

  2. Pour the stewed apples into a pie dish and keep warm.

Make the topping

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the egg and mix well, then gradually stir in the flour and baking powder.

  3. Spread the mixture over the apples in the pie dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown and set.

  2. Serve with custard if desired.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

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

Apples
Soften into a moist, sweet fruit base beneath the sponge topping.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the topping a tender, rich texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the topping as it sets during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the topping rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Spreading the topping over the apples. The batter should be spread evenly so it covers the fruit and bakes into an even, set layer rather than sinking into the hot apples unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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