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Dessert

English Apple Pie with Boiled Custard

A pie of sliced apples baked in a crust, served with a boiled custard made from eggs, milk, and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

English Apple Pie with Boiled Custard

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 pie

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

  2. Peel and slice the apples, then fill a deep pie dish heaping full.

  3. Add sugar, melted butter mixed with lemon juice, and grate nutmeg over the apples.

  4. Prepare a rich pie crust using part butter and lard, line the edge of the dish, and cover the apples with it.

  5. Brush the crust with egg and bake for 30 to 40 minutes.

Make the custard

  1. For the custard, whisk together eggs, milk, cornstarch, and sugar to taste in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over low heat until thickened, adding any desired flavoring.

  3. Serve the custard in small cups or glasses over the pie when serving.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  4. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooking apples
Form the bulk of the filling, softening and releasing juices as the pie bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the apples.
Eggs
Thicken the custard as they set and give it a rich body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens when heated.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by gelatinizing with heat for a smooth, set texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Cooking the custard over low heat. Eggs can curdle if overheated, so gentle low heat with constant stirring lets the custard thicken smoothly.

Swap the apple

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

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

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