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Dessert

Apple Filling

A sweet apple filling made with eggs, sugar, lemon, and grated apples, cooked until thickened.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Filling

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven as for a jelly cake.

  2. Beat the egg in a bowl until light.

Make the filling

  1. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind to the egg and mix well.

  2. Grate the apples into the mixture, stirring each one in before adding the next.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring until it boils and thickens.

Finish

  1. Cool the mixture and spread it between the cake layers.

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. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and apple 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

Egg
Binds the filling and thickens it as it cooks, giving a set custard-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps give it a smooth, glossy body.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness of the apples.
Tart apples
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture, and their pectin helps the filling thicken.

The step that matters

Cooking until it boils and thickens. Egg proteins set as the mixture heats, and the filling only thickens properly once it reaches a boil. Stopping early leaves it runny, while overheating can make the egg curdle and turn grainy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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