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Dessert

Apple Pie

A pastry crust filled with sliced apples, sugar, spice, butter, and a vanilla custard, served with vanilla ice cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie plate with pastry and fill it with sliced apples.

  2. Sprinkle sugar and spice over the apples, then dot with bits of butter.

  3. If the apples are not juicy, add a little water.

  4. Cover with pastry and bake until golden.

Make the custard

  1. In a double boiler, heat the milk until boiling.

  2. Blend the egg yolks with cornstarch and a little milk, then add to the boiling milk.

  3. Remove from heat and flavor with vanilla.

Serve

  1. Serve each slice of pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Apple + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Pastry for pie crust
Forms the enclosing shell that holds the filling while the pie bakes.
Sliced apples
Provide the main filling, softening as they bake and releasing juice.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavor and helps the filling taste rounded.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set when heated and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth custard as it heats and gelatinises.
Milk
Forms the base of the custard, giving it body and a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Add the egg yolk mixture to the boiling milk. Egg yolks can scramble if overheated or added too quickly. Blending them with cornstarch and a little milk first helps them mix in smoothly, and the starch lets the custard thicken without curdling.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, vanilla, cream):

  1. Strawberryfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, vanilla, cream. 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.

More apple pie recipes

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