Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
A Codling Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the codlings
Gather small codlings and place them in a clean brass pan with spring water.
Lay vine leaves on top and cover with a cloth to retain steam.
When the codlings soften, peel off the skin and return them to the water with the vine leaves.
Hang the pan over the fire until the codlings turn a fine green.
Remove the codlings from the water and place them in a deep dish, adding enough sugar to sweeten.
Make the pie
Make a lid with rich puff pastry and bake it.
Once baked, remove the lid and cut it into pieces, placing them inside the pie with points upward.
Make the custard and finish
For the custard, boil 1 pint of cream with a stick of cinnamon and enough sugar to sweeten.
Let it cool, then stir in 4 beaten egg yolks.
Heat the mixture, stirring until thickened but do not let it boil.
Pour the custard over the codlings and garnish with thin strips of lemon peel.
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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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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
- Codlings
- Provide the fruit that softens and forms the main body of the pie filling.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cream custard as they set gently with heat, giving it body.
- Cream
- Forms the base of the custard, giving it richness and a smooth texture.
- Rich puff pastry
- Forms the flaky, buttery lid that bakes golden over the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens both the fruit and the custard to balance the tartness of the codlings.
The step that matters
Heating the custard without boiling. Egg yolks thicken as they warm, but if the custard boils they can curdle and turn grainy, so it must be stirred gently over low heat until it just thickens.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, cinnamon, egg):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, cinnamon, 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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