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Dessert

Apple Cheese Pie

A baked apple pie with a cheese base and a sweetened meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Cheese Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Stew the apples and press them through a colander.

  2. In a bowl, mix the pressed apples with the egg yolks, lemon juice, and softened butter.

  3. Sweeten the mixture to taste.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pie dish without a top crust.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Sweeten the beaten egg whites.

  3. Spread the sweetened egg whites on top of the pie after baking.

  4. Return the pie to the oven.

  5. Brown the top lightly.

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

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

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, tart flavor once stewed and pressed smooth.
Egg yolks
Bind the apple mixture and enrich it, helping it set into a custard-like filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and balances the sweetness.
Egg whites
Whipped until stiff, they form a light meringue topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks, because air trapped in the foam gives the meringue its lift and light texture. Underbeaten whites will slump and weep on the pie.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, butter, 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.

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