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Dessert

Apple Tart, Creamed

A tart of sliced apples cooked with sugar and butter, pureed, baked in pastry with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,706 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Tart, Creamed

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel, core, and cut the apples into thick slices.

  2. Place the apples in a saucepan with sugar, butter, and 2-3 tablespoons of water.

  3. Cook gently until the apples are tender.

  4. Pass the apples through a fine sieve to make a puree.

  5. Adjust sweetness with more sugar if needed.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with the pastry and fill it with the apple puree.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the pastry has risen and set.

  3. Add the prepared custard and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the pastry is cooked and the custard is firm.

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 + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Apples
Break down into a smooth puree that forms the body of the filling.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them soften and caramelise slightly as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the apple puree.
Custard
Sets into a creamy layer over the apple base when baked.
Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp case that holds the filling during baking.

The step that matters

Add the custard and bake at 350°F (175°C) until firm. Custard is egg-based and sets when heated gently; overbaking at high heat can cause it to curdle, weep, or turn rubbery, while underbaking leaves it runny.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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