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Dessert

Sliced Apple Pudding

A baked pudding of sliced apples, sugar, molasses, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Sliced Apple Pudding

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. Layer 1 cup of bread crumbs in the bottom of a pudding dish.

  2. Fill the dish with sliced apples, sugar, water, molasses, and spice.

  3. Cover with a layer of dried bread crumbs and sprinkle with coarse sea salt.

  4. Dot the top with butter.

  5. Place a small saucer over the pudding to prevent it from drying out.

Bake

  1. Bake until the apples are soft, about 30-40 minutes.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 bulk and soft, moist fruit that cooks down into the pudding.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth and a dark color to the filling.
Bread crumbs
Soak up the juices from the apples and give the pudding a soft, set body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enriches flavor and helps the top brown.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelize as they bake.

The step that matters

Covering the pudding with a saucer. The saucer traps steam over the dish so the top does not dry out while the apples soften. Removing it too early can leave the surface dry.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, 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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