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Dessert

Apple Custard Pie

A pie made with sour apple sauce, eggs, milk, and sugar, topped with beaten egg whites and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk 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 Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stew the sour apple sauce.

  2. Sift the stewed apple sauce.

  3. Sweeten the apple sauce to taste.

  4. Flavor the apple sauce with lemon or nutmeg.

  5. Beat the egg yolks with sugar.

  6. Mix the beaten yolks into the apple sauce.

  7. Add milk just before placing the pie in the oven.

Bake and top

  1. Bake the pie until done.

  2. Beat the egg whites.

  3. Spread the beaten egg whites over the baked pie.

  4. Sprinkle a little white sugar on the egg whites.

  5. Return the pie to the oven for 5 minutes.

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 + milktop 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. Lemon + milktop 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

Sour apple sauce
Provides the main fruit body and tart flavor of the custard filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set, giving the custard its body and richness.
Egg whites
Whipped and spread on top, they set into a light, browned meringue-like topping.
Milk
Adds liquid and softness to the custard so it bakes smooth rather than dry.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the white topping brown when returned to the oven.

The step that matters

Add milk just before placing the pie in the oven. Egg yolks begin to thicken the mixture as soon as they are combined with it. If the milk is added early and the filling sits, the custard may separate or bake unevenly, so timing keeps it smooth.

Swap the apple

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

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

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