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Dessert

Apple Cheesecakes

A baked dessert of apples, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon, and puff pastry.

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

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the filling

  1. Grate the apples and mix with melted butter and sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolks, egg whites, lemon juice, and grated lemon rind; mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a puff pastry shell.

  2. Bake until set and golden brown.

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. Butter + sugartop 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 moisture and fruity flavour that bakes into the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown in the oven.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Add structure as they set, helping the filling hold together when baked.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until set and golden brown. Eggs set through heat, so underbaking leaves a runny centre while overbaking can make the filling curdle, dry out, or toughen. Look for a firm centre and an even golden colour.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, 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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