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Dessert

Apple Kuchen

Apple Kuchen is a German apple cake with a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Apple Kuchen

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples and crust

  1. Peel and quarter the apples, then steam until tender.

  2. Line a deep pie plate with pastry and place a layer of apples inside.

Make the custard

  1. Heat the milk in a double boiler.

  2. Mix the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Stir until the mixture thickens, then pour it over the apples in the pie plate.

Top with meringue and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites and granulated sugar until stiff peaks form to make a meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown it in the oven.

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 + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Apple + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 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

Apples
Provide the fruit base and body of the pie once steamed until tender.
Egg yolks
Thicken the milk mixture into a custard that sets when cooled.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk and egg yolk mixture so it holds its shape.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that forms a light, airy topping that browns in the oven.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when heated with the yolks.

The step that matters

Stir the custard until it thickens. Starch needs to reach a boil in the custard to thicken fully. Undercooked starch leaves the filling thin and runny, so it will not hold its shape over the apples.

Swap the apple

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

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

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