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Dessert

Green Apple Pie

A baked dish of apples wrapped in short crust pastry, cooked in water and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green 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

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Sweeten the apples to taste and flavor with nutmeg.

  3. Prepare a short crust pastry.

  4. Roll the pastry into small round pieces and enclose the apples in them.

Bake

  1. Place the dumplings in a deep pan without crowding.

  2. Pour over the dumplings 1 pint of warm water and a piece of butter.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for nearly an hour, or until the apples are cooked and the dumplings are light brown.

  4. If the water cooks down too low, add boiling water as needed.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

Acid apples
Provide the main filling, with tartness that balances the added sugar.
Short crust pastry
Encloses the apples and browns in the oven to form the dumpling casing.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the liquid in the pan, promoting browning and flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples to taste, offsetting their acidity.

The step that matters

Keep the pan from running dry. The water cooks down during baking, and if it drops too low the dumplings can scorch and the apples may not cook through evenly. Adding boiling water as needed keeps the cooking liquid steady.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, 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.

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