Why it works: Apple and hazelnut work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 76 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Pare and slice the apples thinly.
Assemble and bake
Spread the sliced apples over the bottom crust.
Sweeten the apples to taste.
Add the vinegar and pieces of butter.
Cover with the top crust and bake until brown.
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 + hazelnuttop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together76 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together20,806 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + vinegartop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,884 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Form the bulk of the filling and provide the pie's main texture and flavor.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling and crust brown.
- Vinegar
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the apples.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, contributing flavor and a silky mouthfeel to the filling.
The step that matters
Slice the apples thinly. Thin slices cook through within the baking time, so the apples soften fully while the crust browns. Thick slices can stay firm or leave the filling underdone.
Swap the hazelnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, vinegar, butter):
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Almondfits about as well
- Hazelnutthe original
- Cocoafits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, vinegar, butter. 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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