Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Pie

A layered pie with apples, raisins, sugar, butter, and spices baked in pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble

  1. In a two-quart tin basin, place a layer of pie crust at the bottom.

  2. Add a two-inch thick layer of chopped sour apples.

  3. Layer chopped raisins on top and sprinkle with sugar, butter pieces, and spices.

  4. Repeat layering with crust and fruit until the dish is full.

  5. Cover with a final layer of crust on top.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 2 hours.

  2. Once done, turn the pie bottom side up on a plate and sprinkle with fine sugar before serving.

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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the main fruit bulk and tart flavor that balances the sugar.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture as they soften during baking.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juices from the fruit.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor through the filling.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the layered filling together while baking.

The step that matters

Layering the fruit and crust. Filling the dish too full or leaving gaps can cause uneven baking and collapse. Even layers let heat reach the centre so the apples soften fully without the crust underbaking.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, butter, clove, nutmeg. 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes