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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie made with a pastry crust, sliced apples, sugar, and optional cloves or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dish

  1. Make a good light crust.

  2. Wet the edges of the pie dish.

  3. Lay a strip of pastry around the edge of the dish.

  4. Fill the dish with sliced apples.

  5. Sprinkle sugar to sweeten.

  6. Ensure the apples are next to the pastry to prevent heaviness from the sugar.

  7. Flavor with cloves or lemon juice if desired.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with a top crust.

  2. Brush the top crust lightly with cold water.

  3. Trim the edges with a knife.

  4. Decorate with a fork or spoon.

  5. Press the edges together firmly with your thumb.

  6. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  7. Sprinkle with caster sugar before serving.

  8. Serve hot or cold with cream or custard.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Pastry
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and holds its shape while baking.
Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, becoming tender and juicy as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps draw out their juices during baking.

The step that matters

Keep the apples against the pastry. Sugar draws moisture out of the fruit, so if the apples are not packed against the pastry the filling can turn heavy and soggy. Keeping the fruit in contact with the crust helps the base set properly.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, apple):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple. 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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