Name: Mock Apple Pie
Ingredients: 1 teaspoon tartaric acid; 2 cups crushed crackers; 2 eggs; 1½ cups sugar; 5 cups water

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Mock 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

In a large bowl, combine the crushed crackers, tartaric acid, sugar, and water.
Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture, stirring well.

Bake

Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with a second crust.
Bake until golden brown.

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.

Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Crushed crackers: Provide the bulk and starchy body that fills the pie in place of apples.
Eggs: Bind the filling and help it set as it bakes.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown in the oven.
Tartaric acid: Adds a sharp, tart flavour that mimics the acidity of apples.

“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.