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Dessert

Apple Custard for Pies

A custard filling made with eggs, apples, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and topped with meringue for pies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Apple Custard for Pies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the chopped apples, sugar, butter, and lemon juice until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Whip the reserved egg whites until stiff peaks form and spread over the filling.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the meringue is golden.

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.

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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a custard when baked.
Apples
Add fruit flavour and moisture to the custard filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue brown as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling and balances flavour.
Egg whites
Whipped into stiff peaks to form the meringue topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until stiff peaks form so they trap air and hold their shape as meringue. Under-whipped whites will weep or sink into the filling, and any trace of fat or yolk can stop them from whipping fully.

Swap the apple

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

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

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