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Dessert

Apples a LA Parisienne

A baked apple dessert with custard, marmalade, and a sugared egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Apples a LA Parisienne

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 the apples

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

  2. Halve and core the apples.

  3. Place the apple halves in a deep sauté pan greased with butter.

  4. Sprinkle sugar and grated lemon peel over the apples.

  5. Bake the apples until tender.

Assemble the case

  1. Prepare a small quantity of pastry custard.

  2. Prepare a decorative pastry case.

  3. Fill the pastry case with apple marmalade.

  4. Arrange the baked apple halves on top of the case, creating a well in the center.

  5. Fill the well with custard.

  6. Cover the entire top with orange marmalade.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff. Mix in the sifted sugar.

  2. Spread the mixture over the top of the filled case.

  3. Use a paper cornet to create a design on top. Sprinkle the design with sugar.

  4. Bake until golden.

  5. Before serving, fill the design stripes with layers of colored preserves for decoration.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 tender fruit that becomes the dessert's centerpiece.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that bakes into a light, golden meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and the meringue and helps the topping brown as it bakes.
Pastry custard
Adds a rich, creamy filling that contrasts with the soft apples.
Apple marmalade
Adds concentrated apple flavor and moisture to the pastry case filling.
Butter
Greases the pan so the apples do not stick during baking.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped to a firm foam with no trace of fat or yolk, because stiff foam traps air and holds its shape in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, lemon, orange, 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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