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Dessert

Apple Cheesecakes

A baked dessert of apples in a short crust pastry with a custard-like filling.

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 filling

  1. Peel, core, and slice the apples.

  2. Place them in a saucepan with the sugar and 1 tablespoon of water; simmer gently until tender.

  3. Rub the apples through a fine sieve.

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

  5. Stir in the yolks of 3 eggs and the white of 1 egg, and cook until the mixture thickens.

Bake and serve

  1. Prepare patty pans lined with partially baked short crust pastry.

  2. Fill with the apple mixture, cover lightly with sweetened whipped egg white, 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 bulk of the filling and its tart, fruity flavour once cooked down.
Eggs
Thicken the apple mixture as they cook and set the filling and topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it cook to a smooth, soft pulp.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the filling, giving a softer, rounder texture.
Lemon juice and rind
Add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the egg yolks into the apple mixture. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with gentle heat. If the mixture gets too hot or boils, the eggs can curdle and turn grainy, so cook it slowly and stop once it thickens.

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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