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Dessert

Kentucky Pie

A baked apple pie with butter, egg yolks, lemon rind and juice, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon 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 ↓

Kentucky Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Steam the apples until soft, then run them through a colander.

  2. While the apples are hot, stir in the butter.

  3. Once cool, mix in the egg yolks, lemon rind, lemon juice, and sugar until well combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a deep pie plate with pie crust and fill it with the apple mixture.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 minutes.

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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Tart apples
Provide the main body and tart flavour of the filling once softened and pureed.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the apple filling.
Egg yolks
Help bind and thicken the filling as it bakes, giving it a custard-like set.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and contributes to browning in the baked crust and filling.

The step that matters

Let the apple mixture cool before adding the egg yolks. Hot apples can scramble raw egg yolks, producing lumps instead of a smooth, evenly set filling. Cooling first keeps the yolks silky and blended.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, lemon, 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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