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Dessert

Apple Cheese

Apple cheese is a dessert made by boiling apples with sugar and lemon, then coating with custard of cream, egg yolks, cinnamon, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Cheese

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple cheese

  1. Boil sugar in water, skimming off any scum until clear.

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

Make the cream

  1. In a separate pot, combine cream, egg yolks, cinnamon, rose water, and lemon peel, then bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Let the cream mixture cool, then sweeten to taste.

Assemble

  1. Pour the cream over or around the apple cheese.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 natural pectin that thickens the apple cheese as it boils.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, once boiled down, helps the apple mixture thicken and keep.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the topping a smooth, soft texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream custard as they heat and add richness and colour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and helps its pectin set.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma to the cream.

The step that matters

Bringing the cream and egg yolk mixture to a boil. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat, and if the mixture boils hard or too long they can scramble and turn grainy. Keeping the heat controlled and stirring keeps the cream smooth.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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