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Dessert

Quince or Apple Custards

A custard made from quince or apple, thickened with eggs and sugar, flavored with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Quince or Apple Custards

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Add to a pint of apple-juice prepared as for jelly a tablespoonful of strained lemon-juice and from four to six ounces of sugar according to the acidity of the fruit.

  2. Stir these boiling, quickly, and in small portions, to eight well-beaten eggs, and thicken the custard in a jug placed in a pan of boiling water, in the usual manner.

Flavour and serve

  1. A larger proportion of lemon-juice and a high flavouring of a rind can be given when approved.

  2. For quince custards, observe the same directions as for the apple, but omit the lemon-juice.

  3. All custards are much finer when made with the yolks only of the eggs, of which the number must be increased nearly half, when this is done.

  4. Drain well from their juice, roll in dry sifted sugar, arrange brandied Morella cherries, pour over them from a pint to a pint and a half of rich cold boiled custard, garnish the edge with macaroons or Naples biscuits, or pile whipped cream.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

139Calories
7 gProtein
5 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Fruitnot 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 Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

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

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and apple barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
Coagulate when heated, setting the custard and giving it a thick, creamy structure.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the fruit juice.
Apple-juice
Forms the liquid base of the custard and supplies moisture and fruit flavour.

The step that matters

Thickening the custard. Adding the hot liquid slowly, in small portions, to the beaten eggs warms them gradually so the proteins set smoothly instead of scrambling. Gentle heat in a water bath then thickens the custard evenly without curdling.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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.

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