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Dessert

Apple Custard Pie

A pie filled with a custard made from stewed apples, eggs, batter, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel and stew the sour apples until soft, then drain excess water.

  2. Rub the apples through a colander to create a smooth mixture.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the eggs in a bowl and mix in the apple puree, batter, and sugar.

  2. Season the mixture with nutmeg to taste.

  3. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake until set.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure and body.
Sour apples
Provide the main fruit flavour and, once puréed, the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the sour apples.
Batter
Adds body and helps thicken the filling as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking until set. Eggs thicken as they heat, but overbaking makes the custard curdle and weep, while underbaking leaves it runny. Bake until the centre barely wobbles and the custard has firmed at the edges.

Swap the apple

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

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

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