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Dessert

Apple Pie

A fruit pie with sliced apples, flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and nutmeg baked in a double crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Fill the pie crust with the sliced apples.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with flour, sugar, and small pieces of butter.

  3. Season with cinnamon and nutmeg.

  4. Cover with another crust and make a cut in the center for steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 40 minutes or until the apples are tender.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Tart apples
Provide the main filling that softens and becomes tender during baking.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the apples as the pie bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture from the apples for the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enhances flavor and browning in the crust.

The step that matters

Cutting steam vents in the top crust. Vents let steam escape during baking so the filling does not build pressure, which can push the top crust up or make the juices boil over and turn the filling watery.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, 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.

More apple pie recipes

Green 20Dried 19English 13Mock 13German 10Lemon 10 See all 369 →

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