Name: Apple Pie
Ingredients: tart apples, sliced very thin; sugar; small pieces of butter; cinnamon; nutmeg; 2 tablespoons cold water; flour

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Fill the pie crust with thinly sliced tart apples.
Cover the apples with sugar and small pieces of butter.
Season with cinnamon and nutmeg, then add 2 tablespoons of cold water.
Just before covering with the crust, sprinkle lightly with flour.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Swap the apple

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.