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 ↓
Sliced Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix flour and half of the butter in a bowl.
Add ice water gradually to form a stiff dough.
Roll out the dough thinly.
Baste the rolled dough with butter.
Sprinkle lightly with flour.
Fold the dough into a long roll.
Flatten the roll.
Re-roll the dough thinly.
Repeat folding, flattening, and re-rolling two more times.
Chill the final roll in a cold place for at least one hour.
Roll out the dough again.
Assemble and bake
Line two buttered pie plates with the dough.
Reserve some dough for the top crust.
Layer the sliced apples in the crust.
Sprinkle sugar over the apples.
Place whole cloves between the apple layers.
Cover with the reserved crust.
Bake until golden.
Serve barely warm with sugar and cream.
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 gluten structure that holds the layered dough together.
- Unsalted butter
- Creates flaky layers as it stays solid within the folded dough and melts during baking.
- Apples
- Provide the filling's bulk, moisture and tart flavor as they soften in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and helps them develop a syrupy, caramelized filling.
The step that matters
Chill the final roll. Chilling firms the butter so it stays in distinct layers instead of blending into the dough, which keeps the crust flaky rather than tough when baked.
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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