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Dessert

Apple Pool

A dessert made by stewing apples, mixing with stiff egg whites, and setting in a jelly base from hog's feet, sugar, wine, cinnamon, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Pool

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Stew the apples with enough sugar to make them very sweet.

  2. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth and mix with the stewed apples.

  3. Set the mixture on ice.

Prepare the jelly

  1. Prepare hog's feet by cleaning and soaking them in cold water for two days, changing the water twice or three times.

  2. Boil the cleaned feet in a large pot of water until done, then remove them with a skimmer.

  3. Let the pot sit overnight, then skim off the grease from the top.

  4. Scrape the jelly off the bottom and press blotting paper over it.

Make the wine jelly

  1. Put the jelly in a porcelain kettle, adding 2 pounds of sugar, 1 quart of wine, cinnamon, lemon juice, and crushed lemon peel.

  2. Boil hard for 20 minutes without stirring.

  3. Remove scum.

  4. Add 1 teacup of cold water.

  5. Let stand for 10 minutes.

  6. Carefully remove the thick scum.

  7. Strain the mixture through two bleached cotton bags into a bowl and then into molds while hot.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together395 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main fruit body and sweetness of the pudding.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth to give the pudding its light, airy texture.
Hog's feet (in the method)
Release natural gelatin as they boil, which sets the clear jelly.
Madeira or sherry wine
Adds aroma and flavour to the jelly.
White sugar
Sweetens the jelly and helps it set firm.

The step that matters

Boil hard for 20 minutes without stirring. Boiling concentrates the mixture and helps the jelly set; stirring can break up the forming scum and cloud the clear result, so it is left alone.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, egg, sherry, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, egg, sherry, cinnamon. 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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