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Dessert

Apple Puffs

Apple puffs are puff pastry shells filled with apple purée and lemon, topped with sweetened whipped egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon 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 Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the shells

  1. Line pastry pans with puff pastry.

  2. Place a few hard breadcrumbs in the center of each to prevent rising and partially bake.

Fill and bake

  1. Remove the crusts and fill with the apple mixture: combine apple purée, lemon juice, lemon rind, egg yolks, and beaten egg white.

  2. Sweeten the whipped egg white with sugar and place a teaspoonful on top of each cake.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 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).

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

Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling while it bakes.
Hard breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and keep the pastry from rising too much in the centre.
Apple purée
Provides moisture and the main apple flavour of the filling.
Egg yolks
Enrich and set the filling, giving it a custard-like texture.
Egg white
Adds structure to the filling and, whipped, gives the topping a light, airy lift.

The step that matters

Place the breadcrumbs in the centre of each shell. Breadcrumbs soak up moisture and weigh down the centre so the pastry rises at the edges rather than puffing up and lifting out of place. Too few or uneven crumbs can leave the base soggy or uneven.

Swap the apple

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

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

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