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English Apple Pie with Boiled Custard

An apple pie served with a soft‑boiled custard made from eggs and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Apple Pie with Boiled Custard

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pare and slice the apples, fill a deep pie dish heaping full, put in sugar and butter, to which the lemon juice has been added; grate the nutmeg over all.

  2. Combine twelve good cooking apples, half a cup of sugar, one tablespoon melted butter, half a teaspoon lemon juice, a little grated nutmeg, half a cup water, and pie crust.

Bake the pie

  1. Make a good, rich pie crust of part butter and lard, line the edge of dish with crust, cover the apples over with it, brush over with Qgg, and cook from thirty to forty minutes in a moderate oven.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Make a soft‑boiled custard of three eggs to a quart of milk, add a teaspoonful of cornstarch and sugar to taste.

  2. Use any flavoring desired; put in small cups or glasses, and pour over pie when serving at table — one cup for each person.

  3. Have pie either hot or cold; custard must be soft and cold.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

952Calories
29 gProtein
27 gFat
150 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Landmarks Club. 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. See the original page.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the bulk of the filling, becoming tender and flavorful as they cook.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set gently with heat, giving it a soft, smooth body.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by absorbing liquid and swelling when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the pie crust and filling.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens with the eggs and cornstarch.

The step that matters

Soft-boiled custard. Heating eggs gently keeps the custard smooth; too much heat makes the eggs scramble and curdle, and cornstarch needs to be fully heated to thicken properly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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