Name: Apple Pie
Ingredients: 4 tablespoons sugar; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg; Apples (enough to fill the pie plate); Butter (a little); A pinch of salt; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; Seedless raisins (a few)

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. 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).
Line a pie plate with crust.
Sprinkle sugar in the crust.

Fill and assemble

Peel and slice the apples.
Fill the pie plate with the sliced apples.
Add salt, nutmeg, a little butter, lemon juice, and a few seedless raisins.
Cover the pie with the top crust.
Brush the crust with cold water.

Bake

Bake until 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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,377 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,790 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,920 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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 fruit flavour and texture once baked.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling taste balanced against the tart apples.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the filling, contributing flavour and a silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and helps keep the fruit from tasting flat.
Nutmeg: Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the cooked apples.

Swap the apple

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

Figfits better
Orangefits better
Vanillafits better
Applethe original

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