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Dessert

Pan-dowdy

A baked apple pastry made with stewed apples, flour dough, milk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Pan-dowdy

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

  1. Fill a dish with stewed apples and sweeten and flavor to taste.

  2. Make a dough with flour and milk, then cover the apples with it.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until nearly done.

  2. Remove the pastry, break it into the apples, and return it to the oven.

  3. If the dish is dry, pour over it 1 teacup of rich cream.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Stewed apples
Provide the main filling and moisture that the pie is built around.
All-purpose flour
Forms the dough that covers the apples and gives the crust its structure.
Milk
Hydrates the flour so it forms a workable dough, adding some richness.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and richness to a filling that has dried out in the oven.

The step that matters

Adding cream only if the dish is dry. Cream adds moisture and fat, but pouring it in without checking can make the filling soupy. Check the dish first so the cream only fixes actual dryness.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, flour, milk, cream. 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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