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Apple Cheese-cakes

Apple cheese-cakes are baked apple custard cakes with butter, sugar, eggs, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Cheese-cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pare, core, and boil enough apples to make 1 pound when pressed through a coarse sieve.

  2. Add the sugar, melted butter, and 2 whole eggs to the apple pulp, along with the lemon juice and grated rind. Stir and mix well.

Bake

  1. Line small patty pans with flaky crust.

  2. Fill the lined pans with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 15 to 20 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. Lemon + buttertop 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

Apple pulp
Forms the bulk of the filling and gives the cakes their moisture and apple flavor.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving a tender texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the apples and lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from the juice and rind.

The step that matters

Boiling and sieving the apples. The apples must be cooked until soft and pressed to a smooth pulp so the filling has a uniform texture. Excess liquid left in the pulp can make the filling runny and soggy in the crust.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, butter, sugar, egg. 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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