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Dessert

Apple Custard Pie. No. 1

A pie filled with sliced apples and a custard made from eggs, milk, sugar, and seasoning.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pie. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Lay the pie crust in a pie plate.

  3. Slice enough apples to half fill the pie plate.

Make the custard

  1. In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar, and seasoning.

  2. Pour the custard mixture over the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake until the custard is set in the middle.

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 + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Eggs
Coagulate when heated, setting the milk custard so it holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and, with the eggs, sets into a soft texture.
Apples
Provide the fruit filling and moisture that cooks down beneath the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the flavour of the custard.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is set in the middle. Eggs keep setting as they cool, so underbaking leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the custard grainy or cause it to weep. Check the middle for a gentle wobble rather than a liquid slosh.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar. 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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