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Dessert

Deep Apple Pie

A pie with a thick pastry crust filled with sliced apples, sweetened and flavored with lemon rind or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Deep Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the pastry

  1. Mix lard or butter, salt, flour, and enough cold water to form a stiff paste.

  2. Roll out the pastry to ½ inch thick.

  3. Spread ¼ of the shortening. Fold the pastry. Roll out again.

  4. Repeat until all shortening is used.

Fill the pie

  1. Pare and slice the apples.

  2. Fill a deep baking dish heaping full with apples.

  3. Line the edges of the dish with pastry.

  4. Add the apples.

  5. Sweeten to taste.

  6. Flavor with lemon rind or cinnamon.

  7. Cover with pastry.

  8. Wet the edges.

  9. Cut small holes in the top.

Bake

  1. Brush with beaten egg.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven until the apples are done.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Lard or butter
Creates flaky layers as it is folded into the pastry, keeping layers separate during baking.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the pastry its shape and body.
Tart apples
Provide the filling bulk and tart flavor that balances the sugar.
Egg
Brushed on top to promote browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Rolling and folding the layered pastry. Spreading and folding the fat through the dough creates separate layers. Overworking the dough or letting the fat soften too much blends it in, reducing flakiness.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, apple, sugar, cinnamon, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, apple, sugar, cinnamon, egg. 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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