Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Scallop

Apple Scallop is a baked apple dessert layered with bread crumbs and sugar, finished with cold water and served with milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,790 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Apple Scallop

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare, core, and slice the apples.

Layer and bake

  1. Spread a layer of apples in the bottom of a deep pudding dish.

  2. Add a layer of bread crumbs mixed with sugar.

  3. Repeat layers until the dish is filled, ending with a layer of apples on top.

  4. Pour in the cold water.

  5. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

Serve

  1. Serve with rich milk or cream.

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 + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Bread + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,638 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Cooking apples
Provide the main body and tart flavor that cooks down into the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the apples and help the layers hold together while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apples caramelize slightly as they bake.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Apple Bread PuddingApple Bread Pudding21 recipesApple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipes