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Dessert

Apple Custards

A baked custard made with stewed apples, milk, butter, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Custards

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Steam the apples until soft.

  2. Rub the apples through a sieve into a bowl.

Make the custard

  1. Add milk, butter, sugar, and egg yolks to the apple puree and mix well.

  2. Pour the mixture into baking cups and place them in a baking dish filled with hot water.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

Top and serve

  1. Remove from the oven and top each custard with beaten egg whites.

  2. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and return to the oven to brown slightly.

  3. Serve cold.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Tart apples
Provide the main fruit flavor and body of the custard once pureed.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard and add richness as they set in the oven.
Egg whites
Beaten and spooned on top, they set into a light, airy layer that browns.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, diluting the puree into a smooth custard.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps the top brown slightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake in a water bath. Baking the cups in hot water surrounds the custard with gentle, even heat. This keeps the eggs from overheating, which would make the custard grainy or cracked.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, 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.

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