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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie made with sliced apples, sugar, nutmeg or cinnamon, and pie dough crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate 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).

  2. Cover a pie plate with the bottom crust dough.

Assemble

  1. Fill the dish with the apple slices, piling them higher in the middle.

  2. Sprinkle the sugar and nutmeg or cinnamon over the apples.

  3. Cover with the top crust, trimming it neatly and pricking or scoring it.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until the crust is golden.

  2. Let the pie stand in the oven with the door open for a few minutes 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. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 and fruity flavour of the filling as they soften while baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture out of the apples to form the filling's syrup.
Pie dough
Forms the structure of the pie, enclosing the filling and browning to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden. The crust must brown fully so the bottom and edges are cooked through and the filling has time to soften. Pale crust usually means underbaked pastry.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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