Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Custard Pie

A pie with stewed apples and a custard filling made from milk, eggs, and corn starch.

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

Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Apple Custard Pie

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 the apples

  1. Stew the apples until soft, then sift and add sugar.

  2. Line a deep pie plate with the crust, building up a little edge.

  3. Fill the pie plate nearly half full with the stewed apples and grate a little nutmeg over them.

Make the custard and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the warm milk, eggs, corn starch, salt, and sugar to taste to make the custard.

  2. Pour the custard over the apples in the pie plate.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until the custard is firm in the center.

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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Nutmeg + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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 + corntop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together330 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard into a firm, sliceable filling as they cook.
Rich warm milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard, giving it a smooth, creamy texture.
Corn starch
Thickens the custard so it holds its shape rather than running.
Apples
Provide the main fruit body and tartness that balances the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Bake until the custard is firm in the center. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves a runny center while overbaking can make the custard grainy or weepy. Checking that the center is firm rather than trusting the clock helps achieve a smooth, sliceable custard.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, milk, egg, corn. 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 recipesCorn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipes