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Dessert

Green Apple Pie

A pie made with green apples, sugar, nutmeg, and butter, baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Green Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie tin with a good crust.

  2. Slice the apples and place them in the crust.

  3. Cover with the upper crust without pinching it down.

Bake

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until the apples are done.

Season and finish

  1. Remove from the oven and carefully lift off the upper crust with a knife.

  2. Sprinkle sugar, nutmeg, and small pieces of butter on the apples.

  3. Replace the upper crust after seasoning.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Apple and sugar 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

Pie crust
Forms the shell that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Green apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, softening and releasing moisture as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the apple juices thicken and caramelise slightly.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the apples.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour through the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until the apples are done. Heat softens apple cell walls so the slices become tender. Pulling the pie too early leaves the apples firm and starchy, while the crust may already be browned.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, 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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