Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Creamed 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 apples
Tare, cut the baking apples in quarters and core them.
Mix in enough sugar to sweeten the apples.
Add grated lemon peel, cloves, and water.
Assemble and bake the pie
Place an edging of puff pastry around a pie dish.
Cover the apples with a thin crust of pastry.
Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until the apples are soft.
Make the decorations
Make extra puff pastry decorations.
Cut the decorations into shapes.
Brush the shapes with egg white.
Sprinkle the shapes with sugar.
Bake the shapes until golden.
Finish with custard
Once the apples are baked and cooled, remove the crust.
Cover the apples with cold boiled custard.
Decorate the top with the baked pastry shapes.
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 + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,774 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,150 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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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).
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
- Baking apples
- Provide the soft, tender fruit body that forms the pie's filling.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a flaky, crisp edging and decorative shapes as it bakes.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and adds browning and sheen to the decorations.
- Egg white
- Gives the pastry shapes a glossy surface and helps them brown.
- Boiled custard
- Adds a creamy, moist layer that contrasts with the cooked apples.
- Lemon peel
- Adds bright aromatic oils that balance the sweetness of the apples.
The step that matters
Cool the apples before adding the custard. Hot apples would warm the cold custard, thinning it and making it likely to curdle or weep. Letting the apples cool fully keeps the custard smooth and set on top.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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