Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Apple Torte 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).
In a bowl, mix the bread crumbs with sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel.
Grease a deep pie plate and line it with the bread crumb mixture.
Assemble
In another bowl, combine the sliced apples, sugar, raisins or currants, and citron.
Spread the apple mixture over the bread crumbs, adding more sugar on top.
Cover with the remaining bread crumbs, dot with butter, and sprinkle with wine.
Bake
Bake for about 20 minutes.
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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Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
-
Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
-
Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together85 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Stale rye bread crumbs
- Soak up juices from the apples and form a firm base above and below the filling.
- Tart apples
- Provide the bulk of the filling and their acidity balances the sweetness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the apples caramelize and brown.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps the top brown as it bakes.
- Wine
- Adds moisture, acidity and aroma to the top layer.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rye, bread, sugar, cinnamon, apple, raisin, butter):
- Figfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rye, bread, sugar, cinnamon, apple, raisin, 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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