Name: Custard with Apples and Apricot Marmalade
Ingredients: 10 whole apples; 2 tablespoons apricot marmalade; 2 ounces butter (optional); apple jelly or additional marmalade for serving; cherries or grapes for garnish

Why it works: Apple and grape match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,659 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Custard with Apples and Apricot Marmalade

Ingredients

10 whole apples
2 tablespoons apricot marmalade
2 ounces butter (optional)
apple jelly or additional marmalade for serving
cherries or grapes for garnish

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Remove the insides of the apples and fill them with apricot marmalade.
Mix 2 tablespoons of apricot marmalade with the apples.
Place 4 tablespoons of this mixture at the bottom of a custard dish.
Arrange the filled apples on top and pour the remaining custard over them, ensuring the apples are not covered.
Wrap the custard with a strip of buttered paper and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 45 minutes.
Once baked, ice the custard and serve hot or cold, topped with apple jelly or additional marmalade, and garnish each apple with a cherry or grape.

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.

Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,659 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together777 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).
Apricot + grapetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together477 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,458 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).