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Dessert

Apple Cheese

Apple cheese is a sweet apple confection made by baking apples, sweetening, boiling, and setting in molds with optional lemon or almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apple Cheese

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and quarter the apples, removing the cores.

  2. Place the apples in a deep pot or jar and add the parings and cores on top.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until the apples are soft.

  4. Remove the parings, cores, and any dry bits of apple.

Make the apple cheese

  1. Transfer the apples to a stewpan and add powdered sugar to taste.

  2. Boil for four hours until the mixture is thick.

  3. Optionally, add grated lemon rind or a few drops of essence of lemon, and blanched almonds before molding.

Mold and store

  1. Pour into molds or cups and cover with paper moistened with brandy.

  2. Store in a dry place for three weeks until it can be cut smoothly.

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 + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

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

  5. Brandy + almondtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,969 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the fruit pulp that cooks down into a thick, sliceable set.
Fine powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and, as it cooks down, helps the mixture thicken and firm.
Brandy
Its alcohol and aroma help preserve the paste on the surface it covers.

The step that matters

Boiling until thick. The mixture must reduce enough to set firm when cooled. Stopping early leaves it soft, while over-boiling can scorch the sugar and apple, so watch the texture closely.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, brandy, almond):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, brandy, almond. 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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