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Dessert

Apple Pop-overs

A baked custard with apples, made by combining a roux, eggs, milk, baking soda, and grated apples, then baking in water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Pop-overs

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Make a white roux by stirring 2 tablespoons of flour into 1 tablespoon of hissing butter until thick.

  2. Thin the roux with 2 cups of scalding milk and stir for 2 minutes.

  3. Pour the mixture over the beaten yolks of 4 eggs.

  4. Add a small piece of baking soda to the hot milk.

  5. Grate 6 peeled apples directly into the custard mixture.

  6. Whip in the stiffened egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Half fill greased custard cups with the mixture.

  2. Set the cups in a pan of hot water and bake at 400°F (200°C) until puffed and lightly browned.

  3. Turn out onto hot plates and serve with brandy sauce.

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

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

Flour and butter 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

Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and add richness and structure as they set.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air and lift the popovers as they bake.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the milk into a stable batter.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, adding moisture for steam to puff the popovers.
Apples
Add moisture, sweetness and aroma to the custard batter.

The step that matters

Whip in the stiffened egg whites. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in gently, since overmixing deflates the air that makes the popovers rise.

Swap the apple

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

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

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