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Dessert

Birds' Nest Pudding

A baked apple pudding with a batter of eggs, flour, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Birds' Nest Pudding

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Core and peel the apples.

  2. Place the peeled apples in a dish.

  3. Fill the cores with sugar and a little grated nutmeg.

  4. Cover and bake the apples.

Make the batter and bake

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks until light, then add the flour and baking powder.

  2. Stir in the milk and salt, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture over the baked apples and bake for 1 hour 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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Provide the fruit base that softens and sweetens as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and structure as it sets.
Egg whites
Whipped into the batter to lighten it and help it rise and set.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter as it bakes and sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make it rise and become light.
Milk
Moistens the batter and helps it bake to a tender texture.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the egg whites. Stirring them in hard knocks out that air, so the pudding rises less and turns dense.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, egg, flour, milk. 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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