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Dessert

Creams, Jellies, Omelets, Etc

A custard of stewed apples topped with whipped cream and garnished with apple jelly and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Creams, Jellies, Omelets, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Stew the apples for 30 to 40 minutes until tender.

  2. If the apples are not sweet enough, add more sugar.

  3. Layer the apples at the bottom of a dish.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, stir together the milk, cream, and eggs with a little sugar over low heat until thickened. Do not boil.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  3. Pour the custard over the apples.

Top and garnish

  1. Whip the cream with sugar and lemon peel.

  2. Heap the whipped cream over the custard.

  3. Garnish with strips of apple jelly and slices of citron.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Soften into a tender base that gives the dish its main flavour and body.
Eggs
Set the custard as they thicken with gentle heat, giving it structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding softness and mild sweetness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the custard and topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and custard to taste.

The step that matters

Thicken the custard without boiling. Over low heat the egg proteins gently coagulate and thicken the milk and cream. Boiling can curdle the eggs, leaving the custard grainy and thin.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, cream, egg, 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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