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Dessert

Green Apple Pie

A pie filled with sliced green apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, lemon juice, and butter, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Green 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the sliced apples with sugar, flour, cinnamon, and lemon juice.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the apple mixture into the pie crust.

  2. Dot the top with butter.

  3. Cover with another pie crust or leave open‑faced.

  4. Bake for 45 minutes or until the apples are tender and the crust is 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.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Green apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and cook down to a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps draw out juices that form the filling.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the apples as the pie bakes.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and balances the sugar.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enhances flavor and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Thickening the apple filling. Flour must be mixed evenly through the sliced apples so it can absorb the juices released during baking. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of raw flour or a runny filling once the pie is cut.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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