Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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.
Make the filling
Mash the boiled apples until smooth.
Cream the butter and mix it with the mashed apples while still warm.
Add the beaten eggs, sugar, lemon juice, and grated rind to the mixture.
Bake
Pour the filling into a puff pastry base, leaving the top open.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden 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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 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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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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 moist, soft body of the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the filling and set it as the heat cooks it.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and fragrant aroma that brighten the sweet filling.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. The beaten eggs must be heated long enough to set the filling, so it firms rather than staying runny. Browning of the pastry and sugars shows the bake is well advanced, and it is easy to pull the pie too early.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, egg, sugar, lemon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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