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Dessert

Scotch Pie

A baked apple pie topped with a sweet sauce of flour, butter, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Scotch 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 the pie

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Slice the apples and place them in a pie pan. Add the water to the apples.

  3. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder or baking soda, and shortening until stiff enough to spread over the apples. Spread the mixture over the apples.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tablespoon of flour, butter, sugar, and nutmeg. Stir in a little cold water. Pour in the boiling water.

  2. Boil for five minutes or until the sauce is clear.

Serve

  1. Serve the pie with the sauce poured over it, either cold or warmed.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Tart apples
Provide the fruit filling, with tartness that balances the sweet sauce.
All-purpose flour
Forms the stiff topping that spreads over the apples and bakes into a crust.
Baking powder or baking soda
Leavens the topping so it rises and becomes light rather than dense.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the topping and keeps it crumbly.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps it thicken and turn glossy.
Flour (for sauce)
Thickens the sauce as it boils with the butter and sugar.

The step that matters

Boil the sauce until clear. Flour needs to boil to fully thicken and lose its raw starchy taste. Stopping early leaves the sauce cloudy and thin.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sauce, egg, butter, sugar, nutmeg. 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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