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Dessert

Apple Cheese and Cream

A dessert of stewed apples set in a mold, topped with a thickened milk custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and rice are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,374 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apple Cheese and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Stew the apples, sugar, lemon rind, and water until thick.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and let it set until stiff.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, lemon rind, egg yolk, and ground rice.

  2. Boil the custard mixture for a few minutes until thickened.

Serve

  1. Turn the apple mixture out of the mold and pour the custard around it.

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 + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

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

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

  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

Apples
Provide the main body and flavor of the dessert once cooked down and set.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them thicken into a firm, sliceable mass.
Egg yolk
Thickens the custard and gives it a rich, smooth texture when heated.
Ground rice
Stabilizes the custard so it thickens without becoming grainy or runny.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding creaminess and body.

The step that matters

Boil the custard mixture for a few minutes until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set when heated, but overheating or boiling too hard can curdle the custard, leaving it lumpy and thin. Stir constantly and stop once it coats the spoon.

Swap the apple

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

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

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