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Dessert

Apple and Currant Pastry

A pastry filled with apples and currants, baked until browned and dusted with castor sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple and Currant Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, salt, baking powder, and some sugar. Rub in the lard until well combined.

  3. Add cold water to form a stiff paste.

Assemble the pie

  1. Grease a pudding tin and line it with half of the pastry.

  2. In another bowl, combine currants, chopped apples, remaining sugar, nutmeg, lemon rind, and lemon juice. Spread the fruit mixture over the pastry in the tin.

  3. Wet the edges of the pastry and cover with the remaining half. Press the edges together and roll them slightly, marking the top with squares.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until slightly browned, then dust with castor sugar.

  2. Let it cool for a few minutes, then cut into squares and serve hot or 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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the pastry structure that holds the filling and gives the pie its body.
Lard
Adds fat that makes the pastry short and tender by coating flour particles.
Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and a tart flavour that balances the sugar.
Currants
Add concentrated sweetness and a chewy, juicy texture to the filling.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pastry rises and becomes lighter.
Sugar
Sweetens the pastry and filling and promotes gentle browning on the top crust.

The step that matters

Rub in the lard until well combined. Fat coats the flour and limits gluten formation, so the pastry stays short and crumbly. Overworking it or leaving large lumps of lard can make the crust tough or uneven.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, apple, nutmeg, sugar, 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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