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Dessert

Apple Custard

Apple custard is a baked custard with apples, eggs, milk, flour, sugar, lemon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Apple Custard

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel the apples and remove the cores.

  2. Place the apples in an enamel saucepan with 9 lumps of sugar and the juice of the lemon.

  3. Cook until they become a pulp.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix with the flour and milk.

  2. Add a small amount of grated nutmeg and the remaining sugar.

  3. Pour the mixture into a double boiler over boiling water.

  4. Stir until it begins to thicken, but do not let it boil.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the cooked apples in a well-buttered pie dish, pour the custard over them, and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the custard is set, ensuring it does not boil.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 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
Cook down to a pulp that forms the soft base under the custard.
Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving it body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and keeps it tender as it sets.
Flour
Thickens the custard and helps it hold its shape when cooked.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and custard and balances the lemon's acidity.

The step that matters

Keep the custard below boiling. Egg proteins set gently at moderate heat. If the custard boils, the eggs scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, set custard.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, milk, flour, sugar, nutmeg. 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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