Skip to main content
Dessert

Mironton of Apples

A baked apple dessert with lemon peel, brandy, and a whipped cream topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Mironton of Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Pare, scald and mash a dozen apples, and pile high on the serving dish.

  2. Boil 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel with 2 or 3 tablespoons sugar in a cup of water.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of 2 eggs and the white of one, a tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon flour, and 1 tablespoon brandy. Stir till quite smooth.

  4. Pour over the apples.

  5. Beat 1 egg white stiff, spread this over the top. Sift some powdered sugar over it.

  6. Bake in a slow oven 10 or 15 minutes.

Make the orange cream

  1. Dissolve half a box gelatin in warm water.

  2. Add 2 tumblers orange juice, whites of 2 eggs beaten stiff and sugar to taste.

  3. When nearly cold, add a pint of whipped cream and put in a mould on the ice.

Make the custard and serve

  1. Heat 1 pint sweet cream in a double boiler. When at the boiling point, stir in 1 cup white sugar beaten up with the yolks of 4 eggs, and the juice and grated rind of 1 orange. Heat a moment longer, then take off and stir till cold.

  2. Put in small glasses. Beat the whites of the eggs stiff with 1 tablespoon sugar, and drop a spoonful in each glass.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

707Calories
21 gProtein
12 gFat
127 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Brandynot 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 Martin, Maria Ewing, Mrs., [from old catalog] comp. 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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Brandy + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,706 recipes

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

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard and whites are beaten stiff to lighten the topping and cream.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body to the custard as it thickens over heat.
Gelatin (in the method)
Sets the orange mixture so it holds its shape when chilled in a mould.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a soft, airy texture to the set orange mixture.
Apples (in the method)
Form the mashed fruit base that the lemon custard is poured over.
Orange juice
Supplies sharp citrus flavour and liquid to the orange gelatin mixture.

The step that matters

Stir the custard until cold. Stirring the hot cream and egg yolk mixture steadily keeps the eggs from scrambling and gives a smooth, evenly thickened custard as it cools.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipes