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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie is a baked dessert with a fruit filling of stewed apples, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and a pie 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 ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Peel and core the apples, then stew them until soft.

  2. Mash the apples into a smooth compote and sweeten to taste.

  3. While the mixture is hot, stir in 1 teaspoon of butter for each pie and season with nutmeg.

  4. Let the filling cool, then fill your pie crust.

Finish and serve

  1. You can either cover the pie with strips of crust or bake it uncovered.

  2. Serve cold, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

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. Butter + nutmegtop 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its tart, fruity flavour once cooked soft.
Sugar
Sweetens the compote and balances the tartness of the apples.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the cooked apples.
Pie crust
Encloses the filling and gives the pie its structure and crisp edge.

The step that matters

Let the filling cool before filling the crust. Adding hot compote to raw pastry can make the base soggy and weaken its structure before baking. Cooling the filling first helps the crust hold its shape and bake crisp.

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.

More apple pie recipes

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