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Dessert

Apple Cheese

Apple Cheese is a gelatin dessert made from stewed apples, sugar, lemon juice, cloves, cinnamon, and gelatin, served with custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple base

  1. Stew the apples with sugar, lemon juice, cloves, and cinnamon until soft.

  2. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.

  3. Dissolve the gelatine in a little water.

  4. Mix the dissolved gelatine into the apple mixture.

Set and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and refrigerate until set.

  2. Once cold, turn out and serve with custard poured over it.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main body and flavour, and break down into a smooth purée when stewed and sieved.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Gelatine
Sets the purée into a firm, sliceable shape as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the gelatine fully before mixing it in. Gelatine must be completely dissolved and evenly distributed, or it can form lumps or streaks. It sets only when it is fully hydrated and blended through the mixture, so the cheese will set evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon. 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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