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Apple Custard Pies

A pie made with apple sauce, milk, eggs, sugar, and lemon, baked with a single crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat the apple sauce until smooth and free from lumps.

  2. Stir in the milk, then add the sugar and beaten eggs.

  3. Flavor with lemon.

Bake

  1. Bake with only an under crust.

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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable texture as they cook.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and moisture that the eggs set within.
Apple sauce
Adds body, moisture and apple flavor to the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the apple.
Lemon
Adds bright aroma and a touch of acidity to the custard.

The step that matters

Bake with only an under crust.. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the custard needs enough time to firm up, but overbaking makes it weep or curdle. Check for a set center rather than a fixed time.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sauce, sugar, lemon. 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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