Name: Mock Apple Pie
Ingredients: 1 large Boston cracker; 1 cup cold water; 1 cup fine white sugar; juice and pulp of 1 lemon; ½ lemon rind, grated; a little nutmeg; ½ batch puff pastry

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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 the filling

Crush the Boston cracker finely with a rolling pin.
In a bowl, combine the crushed cracker with cold water, sugar, lemon juice and pulp, grated lemon rind, and nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

Line a pie plate with half of the puff pastry.
Pour the mixture into the pie plate and cover with the remaining puff pastry.
Bake for 30 minutes at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together23,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Boston cracker: Crushed, it stands in for apples, supplying the bulk and starchy body of the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps balance the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice and pulp: Provides acidity and bright flavour that mimics the tartness of apples.
Puff pastry: Forms a flaky, buttery crust that rises and browns in the oven.