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Dessert

Custards, Etc

A baked apple custard pie with a crust, stewed apples, and a whipped egg white topping.

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 ↓

Custards, Etc

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 filling

  1. Peel, slice, stew, and sweeten the apples until soft.

  2. Mash the apples until very smooth or rub through a sieve.

  3. Season the apple mixture with nutmeg or lemon peel.

Bake and top

  1. Line a pie plate with the bottom crust and bake it first at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Whip the egg whites with the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form.

  3. Fill the baked crust with the apple mixture.

  4. Spread the whipped egg whites smoothly over the apples.

  5. Return to the oven and bake until the top is nicely browned.

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. Nutmeg + eggtop 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. Nutmeg + sugartop 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).

Nutmeg and egg 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

Apples
Provide the main body and tart flavour of the filling once cooked down and smoothed.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that sets with heat to form a light, browned topping.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg whites and helps them hold stable peaks.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Under-whipped whites collapse and weep into the apples, while over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff, glossy peaks trap air that expands and sets into a stable, browned meringue topping.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, egg, 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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