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Dessert

Apple Cheese

Apple cheese is a sweet, apple-based dessert made by cooking apples, sugar, and optional lemon rind and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apple Cheese

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.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Place them in a deep pot or jar, adding the parings and cores on top.

  3. Cover with paper and bake at 350°F (175°C) until soft.

  4. Remove the parings and cores, then pulp the fruit through a sieve.

Make and set the cheese

  1. Combine the pulp with powdered sugar to taste in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for four hours until stiff.

  3. Optionally, add grated lemon rind and chopped blanched almonds before molding.

  4. Pour into molds or cups and cover with paper.

  5. Store in a dry place; it will be ready to cut in three weeks.

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 + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  3. Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,025 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 pectin-rich pulp that thickens and sets into a firm cheese.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pulp and adds body as it cooks down.
Blanched almonds
Add crunch and a mild nutty flavor to the set cheese.
Lemon rind
Adds bright aromatic oils that brighten the sweet apple flavor.

The step that matters

Boil for four hours until stiff. The pulp must reduce long enough to concentrate sugar and fruit solids so it sets firm when cooled. Stopping early leaves a soft, runny cheese that will not hold its shape when cut.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, almond):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, almond. 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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