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Dessert

Puddings

A baked pie of minced apples, beef marrow, raisins, sugar, brandy and spices under a puff paste crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Melt down the beef marrow.

  2. Mix the minced apples, minced sweet, sugar, raisins, brandy, mace, nutmeg, and ginger together.

Assemble the pie

  1. Cover the mixture with puff paste.

  2. Make a design on top.

  3. Dust the top with sugar.

Bake

  1. Bake for no more than an hour.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  4. Apple + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef marrow
Adds richness and fat to the filling, giving it a smooth, moist body.
Minced apples
Provide moisture and tartness, forming the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste balanced and rounded.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy texture to the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and depth of flavour to the spiced filling.
Puff paste
Forms a flaky, layered crust that rises and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake for no more than an hour.. Baking too long drives moisture out of the fruit and fat, drying the filling and over-browning the pastry. Checking near the end of the time keeps the filling moist and the crust golden.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, apple, sugar, raisin, brandy, nutmeg, ginger):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, apple, sugar, raisin, brandy, nutmeg, ginger. 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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