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Dessert

Apple Lemon Pie

A pie with lemon zest, juice, egg, sugar, and grated apples baked between two crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grate the yellow rind of the lemon and add the juice.

  2. In a bowl, beat together the lemon zest, juice, egg, and sugar until well combined.

  3. Stir in the grated apples.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture between two pie crusts.

  2. Bake until the crust is golden and the filling is set.

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. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and apple 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

Egg
Helps bind the filling and sets it firmly as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma from the zest and juice.
Apples
Provide bulk, moisture, and texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until the filling is set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, so the filling firms only when fully baked. Pulling the pie early leaves a runny center that won't hold a slice.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, egg, sugar):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, egg, sugar. 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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