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Dessert

Apple Pie

A pie with a bottom crust, sliced apples, powdered sugar, rose water, cloves, top crust, egg whites, stewed apples, whipped cream, nutmeg, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 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 the crust

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

  2. Place a pie crust in the bottom of a dish.

Fill and bake the pie

  1. Layer sliced apples and powdered sugar alternately until the dish is filled.

  2. Add a few teaspoons of rose water and some cloves.

  3. Cover with a top crust and bake until golden.

Make the richer filling and finish

  1. For a richer filling, stew apples until dry, then rub through a colander.

  2. Sweeten the apple puree with powdered sugar and let it cool.

  3. Mix in the egg whites and whipped cream until well combined.

  4. Spread the mixture onto baked pie crusts.

  5. Grate nutmeg on top and add bits of butter.

  6. Cover with another crust and bake until golden.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, along with moisture and natural sweetness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps draw out their juices.
Egg whites
Set when heated, giving the filling structure and a firmer texture.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a softer, lighter texture to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the crust brown.
Cloves
Add a warm, spiced aroma to the apples.

The step that matters

Bake the top crust until golden. Heat sets the egg whites so the filling firms up, but overbaking can dry the apples and make the filling tough, so check for golden color rather than leaving it in too long.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, rose, clove, egg, cream, nutmeg, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, rose, clove, egg, cream, nutmeg, 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.

More apple pie recipes

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

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