Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Chop the lard into the flour.
Add ice water to form a stiff paste, handling the dough as little as possible.
Roll out the dough very thin, always rolling away from you.
Dot the rolled dough with bits of butter, then roll it up tightly like a sheet of paper.
Flatten the roll with a rolling pin, roll it out again, and baste with butter.
Repeat rolling up, rolling out, and basting until all the butter is used.
Chill the pastry roll in a cold, dry place for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
Assemble the pie
Once firm, roll out the pastry and line buttered pie plates, making the bottom crust thinner than the top.
Pare, core, and slice the apples, layering them on the inner crust.
Sprinkle each layer with sugar and a few cloves until the dish is full.
Cover with the top crust, pressing down firmly at the edges, and bake.
Serve
Serve warm or cold, with sifted white sugar on top.
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 + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,774 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + clovetop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,671 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the pastry once mixed with liquid and rolled.
- Lard
- Shortens the dough, creating a tender, flaky texture by coating flour particles.
- Butter
- Layered into the dough, it melts during baking to create flaky layers and golden color.
- Apples
- Provide the main filling, with tartness balancing the sweetness of the sugar.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps the apples caramelize slightly during baking.
The step that matters
Handling the dough as little as possible. Overworking the dough develops gluten, making the pastry tough instead of tender. Keeping fats cold and chilling the dough before rolling keeps the layers distinct and flaky.
Swap the clove
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, apple, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits about as well
- Clovethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, apple, sugar. 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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