Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple 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 filling
Stew the apples until soft, sweetening to taste.
Grate the lemon rind and mix it with the stewed apples and the egg yolk.
Place a pie crust in the bottom of a pie dish and fill it with the apple mixture.
Bake and top
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until done.
Beat the egg white with additional sugar until stiff peaks form.
Spread the meringue on top of the pie and return to the oven for a few minutes until lightly browned.
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.
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
- Cook down to form the soft, moist body of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue hold its structure.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the apple mixture so it sets rather than running when baked.
- Egg white
- Whipped into a foam that forms the light, browned meringue topping.
- Pie crust
- Forms the base that holds the filling in the dish.
The step that matters
Beating the egg white until stiff peaks form. Egg white under-whipped stays runny and collapses, while over-whipped egg white turns grainy and weeps. Stiff peaks hold air for a meringue that bakes light and browns evenly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, egg):
- Orangefits better
- Vanillafits better
- Limefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, 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.
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