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 ↓
Sliced Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Slice the apples very thin.
Make a light and rich pie crust.
Roll the crust out moderately thick.
Place the crust in a pie tin.
Fill and bake
Add the sliced apples and sprinkle the sugar mixed with flour over them.
Dot with pieces of butter, then add nutmeg and hot water.
Cover with an upper crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden.
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.
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,790 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Apples
- Make up the bulk of the filling and release juice that cooks into the sauce.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the crust brown in the oven.
- Flour
- Thickens the juices released by the apples so the filling sets rather than running.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat that carries flavour through the filling.
- Nutmeg
- Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the apples.
The step that matters
Coating the apples with sugar and flour. The flour must be evenly distributed over the sliced apples so it can thicken the juices as they heat. Clumps can leave pockets of raw flour, while too little leaves a runny filling.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, nutmeg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, 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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