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Dessert

Apples a LA Portuguaise

Apples à la Portuguaise is a baked apple dessert with custard, apricot jam, and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apples a LA Portuguaise

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. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Core the pippins and stack them in a soufflé dish.

  3. Add custard in between the layers of pippins.

  4. Spread a thin layer of apricot jam over the pippins.

Make the meringue

  1. In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites until firm.

  2. Mix powdered sugar and icing sugar, then sift into the egg whites.

  3. Gently fold the sugar into the whipped egg whites.

Assemble

  1. Spread the meringue over the pippins to a thickness of ¼ inch.

  2. Smooth the top with a knife.

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. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pippins (apples)
Provide the fruit base that softens and becomes tender under the custard and meringue.
Custard or frangipan
Adds moisture and richness between the apple layers.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and a glossy, fruity layer over the apples.
Egg whites
Whipped to form the foam that gives the meringue its structure and lift.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until firm. Egg whites must form a stable foam to hold the meringue's shape and lift. Any grease in the bowl can stop them whipping properly, so use a clean bowl, as the recipe says.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, 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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