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Dessert

Golden Apples

Apples stuffed with jam and baked with a rice mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Golden Apples

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Pare and core the apples, then fill them with jam.

  2. Grease a pie dish and place the filled apples inside.

Make the rice

  1. In a saucepan, stew the rice with sugar and butter in the milk.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the spaces around the apples with the rice mixture and place the remaining rice on top.

  2. Beat the egg and brush it over the surface of the dish.

  3. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 1 hour.

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. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Apple + ricetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,311 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Hold their shape as the structure, softening as they bake and adding moisture and fruit flavour.
Rice
Absorbs the milk as it stews, forming a thick, creamy filling that sets around the apples.
Milk
Cooks with the rice to create a creamy, tender texture and moist filling.
Egg
Brushed on the surface, it helps the top set and brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the rice a smooth, soft texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stewing the rice in the milk. Rice must cook gently in the milk and absorb it fully; if heated too fast the milk can scorch on the pan base, and if too little cooking time is given the rice stays firm and grainy rather than creamy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, milk, butter, sugar, 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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