Apple Crumb Pudding

I Had Doubts

The name of this dish sounded promising. I mean, who doesn’t love apples and crumbs? And as for puddings, well, we'd had great luck with Grandma’s steamed ones. If this baked one was as good as those, we would be loving this dish. However, one hard look at the recipe made me doubt.       

One reason was that this recipe had no flour, only graham cracker crumbs, which seemed odd. It also reminded me of the disastrous first attempt of Devil’s Float. The recipe had no leavening either. Grandma had written “good” at the top of the card, though, so I was game to give it a try. 

How to Make Apple Crumb Pudding

The first thing to do was to tackle the all-important crumbs. I got out my box of graham crackers, stuck a bunch in my mini-food processor, and whirled them into fine bits. 

The recipe said to set aside a quarter of a cup for the topping, so I put some in a small bowl for later. 

Next, I grated the apple, using the coarse barrel on this grater. 

The apples, crumbs, and sugar went into a bowl while I prepared the rest of the ingredients. 

This meant melting the butter, beating the eggs, and combining them with the milk and vanilla. 

I stirred everything together and scraped it into a baking dish. The batter was very thin, which did nothing to ease my doubts. I couldn’t imagine what kind of “pudding” this was going to be. Soupy and sticky or firm and cake-like? 

 The reserved crumbs were sprinkled over the top and the dish went into the oven to bake. 

40 minutes later, I pulled it out, and it was surprisingly firm considering how liquidy it had been when it went in. 

I cut it into small pieces, then gave a disclaimer to my dinner guests that this was one of Grandma’s old recipes and they didn’t have to finish it if they didn’t want to. 

Because it was a “pudding,” it got the requisite dollop of cream, and then we all tucked in. 

The verdict

“It tastes eggy,” said one person at the table. “Like it should be a breakfast.” “The cream is good,” said another. These were my thoughts exactly. It was dense and sponglike, but not in a good way, in a something-seems-to-be-missing-from-this-recipe kind of way.  It wasn’t very sweet, either. But yes, the cream was good. 

The yellowed recipe card seemed to be one of the oldest in Grandma's box, so maybe she made this dessert during the Second World War when sugar was hard to come by. Maybe that’s when it tasted “good.” Nowadays, it’s mostly blah. Sorry Grandma, but this one won’t make it into the digital box. 

Click on the link below the recipe card to try it for yourself. If you fiddle with it and end up with a great-tasting dessert, let me know. Apple Crumb Pudding is a delicious-sounding name. It deserves a yummy recipe to go with it.