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Dessert

Apple Cheese and Cream

A sweet apple dessert with a creamy custard topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Apple Cheese and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple paste

  1. Combine sugar and a little water in a saucepan; boil and skim frequently.

  2. Add apples, lemon juice, and peel; boil until thick like jam.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mold and let set until firm.

Make the cream and serve

  1. Heat cream or milk in another saucepan; stir in egg yolks, lemon peel, cinnamon, and orange-flower water.

  2. Boil for a few minutes, stirring frequently, then cool completely.

  3. Turn out the Apple Cheese onto a dish, pour the cream around it, and serve.

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. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the fruit body and pectin that set the thick, jam-like paste.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and, when boiled down, helps it thicken and firm up.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they heat, giving it a smooth, custard-like texture.
Cream or milk
Forms the rich, smooth base of the accompanying sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the cream while it boils. Egg yolks in hot cream can curdle or scramble if overheated or left unstirred. Stirring frequently keeps the heat even so the sauce thickens smoothly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, cream, egg, cinnamon, orange. 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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