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Marlborough Pie or Pudding

A puff pastry apple pie with custard and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Marlborough Pie or Pudding

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Run the cooked apples through a colander.

  2. Beat the egg whites separately until very light.

  3. Beat the egg yolks separately until very light.

  4. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  5. Add the grated nutmeg, lemon rind, and lemon juice to the butter mixture.

  6. Combine the apple puree with the butter mixture.

Make the custard and bake

  1. Line a pudding dish with puff pastry.

  2. Add a thin layer of sweetmeats or stewed apples on the pastry.

  3. Boil the milk with 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1 tablespoon flour until thickened.

  4. Flavor the custard with vanilla extract.

  5. Pour the custard over the fruit in the dish.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

Ice and finish

  1. Once cooled, make an icing with egg whites and sugar.

  2. Pour the icing over the top.

  3. Dry the icing in a moderately heated oven.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 bulk of the filling and its fruity moisture and flavor.
Eggs
Thicken the custard and add structure as they set, and whites give the icing its airy body.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, fat-based texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and custard and helps the icing set into a crisp topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, which thickens when heated with egg.
Flour
Helps thicken the custard so it holds its set after baking.

The step that matters

Boil the milk with eggs, sugar and flour until thickened. Eggs and flour thicken as their proteins and starches set with heat. Stirring constantly and stopping once thick prevents the eggs from scrambling and keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg, lemon, milk, flour. 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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