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Apple Pudding

A boiled apple pudding made with suet crust, apples, cloves, lemon peel, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Apple Pudding

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 ↓

Apple Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the basin

  1. Grease a pudding basin well with butter.

  2. Line the basin with the suet crust.

Fill and wrap

  1. Cut the apples into small pieces and place them within the crust.

  2. Add cloves and strips of lemon peel among the apples.

  3. Cover with more suet crust and tie it up with a floured cloth.

Boil

  1. Plunge the basin into boiling water in a large saucepan.

  2. Boil for 2 to 3 hours, adding more water as it boils away.

  3. Ensure the water remains boiling the entire time.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Good suet crust
Forms the enclosing pastry that holds the filling and cooks through during steaming.
Apples
Provide the main filling, softening into a moist, tender fruit layer as they cook.
Cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma that flavours the apples.
Lemon peel
Adds bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Keep the water boiling throughout. The pudding cooks by steam and boiling water heat. If the water drops below a boil, cooking slows and the crust can turn heavy, so the water must be topped up with boiling water as it evaporates.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, clove, 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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