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Dessert

Apple Lemon Pie

A pie made with chopped tart apples, eggs, lemon juice and rind, baked in two pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Lemon Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the chopped apples, beaten eggs, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, and salt.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place one pie crust in a pie dish and fill it with the apple mixture.

  2. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the edges. Cut slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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 + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 tart flavor that balances the sweetness.
Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a sliceable custard-like texture when baked.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the filling.
Pie crusts
Form the structure that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cut slits in the top crust. Slits let steam escape while the filling heats. Without them, trapped steam can build pressure, lift or crack the top crust, and make the juicy filling bubble out unevenly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon. 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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