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Dessert

Rich Baked Apple Pudding

A baked dessert made with apples, butter, sugar, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and apple 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 ↓

Rich Baked 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 the apples

  1. Peel, core, and cut the apples into pieces.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with just enough water to prevent burning and stew until reduced to a pulp.

Make the filling

  1. Weigh the apple pulp; for every ½ pound, add ½ cup sifted sugar, grated lemon rind, and 6 well-beaten eggs.

  2. Beat the mixture well together.

  3. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Place a border of puff pastry around the dish.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 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. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the pudding into a soft, sliceable structure as they cook, and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and a tender crumb.
Apples
Provide moisture and bulk, forming the base of the pudding.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Puff paste
Forms a flaky, crisp border around the edge of the dish.

The step that matters

Stew the apples to a thick pulp. Enough water prevents scorching, but excess liquid left in the pulp would dilute the egg mixture and keep the pudding from setting evenly. Cooking the apples down well also concentrates their flavour and gives a smooth base.

Swap the apple

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

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

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