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Dessert

Apple Pie Decorated with Cream and Cheese

A finished apple pie topped with a mixture of cream cheese, double cream, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream cheese and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,087 recipes. Both carry gamma-decalactone, which smells peach, creamy. The science ↓

Apple Pie Decorated with Cream and Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pie

  1. Prepare an apple pie using your favorite recipe.

Make the topping

  1. Press the cream cheese through a ricer.

  2. Beat the double cream until solid and fold it into the riced cream cheese.

  3. Add a few grains of coarse sea salt to the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Use a pastry tube to pipe the mixture in a pattern on top of the pie.

  2. Serve as a dessert at luncheon or dinner.

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. Cream cheese + creamtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,087 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  2. Apple + cream cheesetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Supply the main filling and fruit flavour of the pie.
Cream cheese
Gives the topping a rich, tangy body once pressed smooth.
Double cream
Whipped to a firm structure that holds its shape when piped.

The step that matters

Beat the double cream until solid. Cream must be whipped until it holds stiff peaks; under-whipped cream stays soft and will not hold a piped pattern, while over-whipping can turn it grainy and cause it to separate.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream cheese, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream cheese, cream. 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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