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Dessert

Canned Apple Mould

A gelatin dessert made with canned apples, lemon juice, egg whites, and served with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Canned Apple Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in a little cold water.

  2. Remove from heat and add the strained lemon juice.

  3. Sweeten if necessary.

  4. When cool, fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  5. Pour into a ring mould rinsed in cold water.

  6. Once set, turn out into a glass dish.

Serve

  1. Place the canned apples in the center.

  2. Serve with whipped cream.

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. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Gelatine
Sets the liquid into a firm, sliceable molded dessert.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they add lightness and airy structure to the set gelatine.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the dessert.
Canned apples
Provide the fruit flavour and soft texture at the centre of the dessert.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, creamy contrast to the gelatine.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites only when the gelatine is cool. Gelatine must be cool but still liquid before folding in whipped egg whites. If it is too hot, it can deflate the foam, and if it has already set, the whites will not blend in evenly, leaving a lumpy, dense texture.

Swap the apple

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

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

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