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Dessert

Apple Cheesecakes

A baked apple and egg custard served in pastry.

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 Cheesecakes

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.

Make the apple base

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with the sugar and 2 tablespoons of water.

  3. Simmer gently until tender, then rub through a fine sieve.

  4. Return the apple pulp to the saucepan, add lemon juice and grated lemon rind.

  5. Reheat and stir in the yolks of 6 eggs and the whites of 2 eggs, cooking until thickened.

Bake and serve

  1. Line patty pans with pastry and partially bake them.

  2. Fill with the apple mixture, cover with whipped egg whites, and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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 main bulk and fruity flavour once cooked down into a smooth pulp.
Eggs
Thicken the apple mixture as they cook and set the filling, while whipped whites add lightness on top.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple pulp and balances the tartness of the lemon.
Lemons
Add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. The egg yolks and whites must be cooked gently in the hot apple pulp until thickened. Overheating can curdle the eggs and make the filling grainy, while underheating leaves it runny.

Swap the apple

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

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

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