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Dessert

Apple Custard Pie

A baked apple custard pie with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the peeled and cored apples in a small amount of water until soft.

  2. Pass the stewed apples through a colander to make pulp.

  3. In a bowl, mix the apple pulp, egg yolks, whole egg, butter, sugar, lemon juice, and nutmeg.

  4. Line a pie tin with crust and fill it with the apple mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Bake the pie in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  2. Whip the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Gradually add the granulated sugar to the whipped egg whites.

  4. Spread the meringue over the baked pie.

  5. Brown the meringue in the oven.

Serve

  1. Serve the pie cold.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks and whole egg thicken the custard as it sets in the oven.
Apples
Stewed and pureed, they supply the bulk and fruity flavour of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Egg whites
Whipped with sugar, they form a stable meringue that browns on top.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped meringue.

The step that matters

Bake the pie until set. Egg custard sets as its proteins coagulate with heat. Underbaking leaves a runny filling, while overbaking makes it weep and turn grainy.

Swap the apple

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

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

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