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Dessert

Sweet Marlborough Pie

A sweet apple pie with milk, eggs, butter, lemon peel, brandy, and optional pumpkin, baked until set and lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Sweet Marlborough Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pare and grate the apples.

  3. In a bowl, combine the grated apples, milk, eggs, melted butter, lemon peel, and brandy.

  4. Beat the eggs until frothy, then stir in the brown sugar.

  5. Mix the egg mixture with the rest of the ingredients.

  6. If desired, add a little stewed pumpkin to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into deep plates without an upper crust.

  2. Bake until set and lightly browned.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Milk + pumpkintop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk and tender, moist body of the filling.
Eggs
Set the custard-like filling as they cook, giving it structure.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, forming the base of the custard.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a mild caramel note to the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that carries the lemon and apple notes.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly browned. Eggs set as they heat, so the filling needs enough time to firm through. Pulling it too early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard curdle and weep.

Swap the pumpkin

The recipe marks pumpkin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, milk, egg, butter, lemon, brandy, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pumpkinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, milk, egg, butter, lemon, brandy, 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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