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Dessert

Apples, a LA Portuguaise

A dessert of apple pieces arranged in a dome with orange marmalade, pastry custard, meringue, and layered jellies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and apricot 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 ↓

Apples, a LA Portuguaise

Ingredients

Directions

Build the dome

  1. Prepare a dome of apple pieces on a layer of orange marmalade.

  2. Leave the center hollow and fill it with pastry custard.

  3. Cover the dome with more orange marmalade.

Meringue and bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until firm, then mix in the sifted sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the apple dome and create a design with a paper cornet.

  3. Sprinkle sifted sugar on top and bake until light fawn color.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, fill the center with alternating layers of red currant jelly, apple jelly, and greengage or apricot jam.

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 + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

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

  2. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Orange + red curranttop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Red currant + apricottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the bulk of the dome and provide the fruit base that holds the custard.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that sets in the oven to form the meringue topping.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it brown lightly as it bakes.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness and bitter citrus flavour, and its sugar helps the surfaces brown.
Red currant jelly
Adds sweet-tart fruit flavour and a glossy finish to the centre.

The step that matters

Whipping and baking the meringue. Egg whites must be whipped until firm before the sugar is folded in, otherwise the foam will be unstable and may weep or collapse in the oven. Sugar added after whipping keeps the foam stiff and gives a smooth, glossy meringue that colours evenly.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, orange, egg, sugar, apricot. 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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