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Souffles and Puddings

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Souffles and Puddings

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Core the apples and fill the holes with dried cherries or apricot jam.

  3. Cover the apples with the remaining apple puree.

  4. Beat the egg whites until frothy, then gradually add powdered sugar until smooth.

  5. Spread the egg white mixture over the apples and smooth it out.

  6. Sift powdered sugar over the top and bake in a deep dish until set.

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. Apricot + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + apricottop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and apple 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

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, apricot. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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