Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and 88,785 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Apple Roley-poley
Ingredients
Directions
Make the apple paste
Peel, quarter, and core sour apples.
Make rich soda-biscuit dough (or raised biscuit dough if rolled thinner).
Roll dough to half an inch thick.
Slice the dough into quarters and lay on the Puddings and Sauces.
Steam and serve
Place the prepared paste or crust in a steamer and place over a kettle of boiling water.
Cook for an hour and three-quarters.
Alternatively, wrap in a cloth, tie up the ends, baste the sides, put in a kettle of boiling water, and boil for an hour and a half or more, keeping the water boiling constantly.
Cut across and eat with sweetened cream or butter and sugar.
Cherries, dried fruit, any kind of berries, jelly, or apple-butter (raisins may be added to the last two) can be used.
Make the custard apple pudding
Pare and core, without quartering, enough quick-cooking tart apples to fill a pudding pan.
Make a custard of one quart milk and the yolks of six eggs.
Sweeten, spice, pour over apples, and bake.
When done, use the whites of eggs beaten stiff with six table-spoons white sugar.
Spread the custard on, brown lightly, and serve either hot or cold.
Make the gelatin
One box gelatin soaked in just enough cold water to cover it.
Then pour one pint boiling water, one cup of sugar, whites of four eggs, beaten.
Stir for one hour.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsAroma overlaplowMentioned together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsAroma overlapmoderateMentioned together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 77,875 recipes mention both: they likely 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
- Sour apples (in the method)
- Provide tart flavor that balances the sweetness of the dish.
- Eggs
- Yolks set the custard and whites whip into a stiff, airy topping.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding richness and softness.
- Gelatin
- Sets the liquid mixture into a firm, sliceable texture as it cools.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the custard, meringue and gelatin mixture.
The step that matters
Keep the water boiling constantly during steaming. If the water drops below a steady boil, steam output falls and the dough cooks unevenly, leaving it heavy or doughy inside.
“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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