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Dessert

Raisin Pudding

A baked pudding of apples and raisins layered with sugar, butter, and spices, served with sago sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,920 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raisin Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Line the bottom of a buttered pudding dish with Puff or Plain Paste, leaving the sides unlined.

Layer and bake

  1. Add a layer of chopped sour apples, then a layer of chopped raisins.

  2. Sprinkle sugar over the raisins and dot with bits of butter and spices.

  3. Repeat layering until the dish is full, finishing with a layer of crust on top.

  4. Bake slowly for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. Invert onto a plate, sprinkle with fine sugar, and serve with Sago 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. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Sour apples
Provide tart flavour and moisture that softens into the filling as it bakes.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture within the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the fruit take on a syrupy, caramelised character.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, dotted through the layers to enrich the fruit as it bakes.
Puff or plain paste
Forms the crust that lines the dish and covers the top, holding the layers together.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for 1.5 hours. Low, slow heat lets the apples soften fully and the pastry cook through without scorching. Too high a temperature can brown or burn the crust before the fruit is tender.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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