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 ↓
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the filling
In a bowl, combine the chopped apples, sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Stir the mixture well to combine.
Assemble and bake
Fill the pie crust with the apple mixture.
Dot the top of the apples with small pieces of butter.
Cover with the top crust and seal the edges.
Bake in the preheated oven until the crust is golden and the apples are tender.
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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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Tart apples
- Provide the main body and flavor of the filling, softening as they bake.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture from the apples to form a syrup.
- Flour
- Thickens the juices released by the apples so the filling sets rather than running.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and melts over the apples to enrich the filling.
The step that matters
Stirring the filling before it goes into the crust. Flour and sugar need to be evenly distributed through the apples so the juices thicken uniformly instead of leaving pasty pockets or a runny pool.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, cinnamon, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cinnamon, butter. 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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