Skip to main content
Dessert

Gateau De Pommes

Apple cake made by boiling sliced apples in a syrup of water, sugar, and lemon, then shaping the pulp and topping with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Hamilton, Margaret · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and syrup are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,235 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gateau De Pommes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel the apples.

  2. Core the apples.

  3. Cut the apples small.

Make the syrup and cook the apples

  1. Make a rich syrup of water and sugar.

  2. Add the rind and juice of one large lemon to the syrup.

  3. Boil the apples in the syrup with the lemon until they are reduced to a pulp.

Shape and serve

  1. Put the pulp into a shape.

  2. Serve with custard around it.

By Hamilton, Margaret. 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 + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples (in the method)
Break down into a pulp that gives the cake its body and sets when shaped.
Lemon
Adds acidity and fragrant citrus aroma to the syrup.

The step that matters

Boil the apples until they reach a pulp. Apples need enough cooking for their cell walls and pectin to break down into a smooth pulp that holds its shape. Stopping too early leaves lumps, while overcooking can make the pulp thin and watery.

“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.

More apple cake recipes

Dried 62Dutch 43German 12Molasses 9Filling 8Danish 4 See all 117 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes