Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Trifle

A layered dessert of apples, lemon rind, sugar, milk, cream, egg yolk, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apple base

  1. Scald the apples, then pulp them.

  2. Add the grated lemon rind and sugar to the apples.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix the milk, cream, and egg yolk.

  2. Scald the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly without boiling.

  3. Add a little sugar and let it cool.

Assemble

  1. Pour the mixture over the apples and top with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  4. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 dish and provide the fruit base for the layers.
Egg yolk
Thickens the milk and cream into a smooth custard as it gently heats.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, soft texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that the egg yolk sets.

The step that matters

Scalding the custard without boiling. Heating the milk, cream, and egg yolk over low heat while stirring constantly keeps the egg proteins from curdling. Boiling can make the custard grainy or split, so it must stay just below the boil.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, milk, cream, 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes