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Dessert

Green Apple Pie

A pie made with sliced green apples, sugar, cinnamon, butter, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Green Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and fill

  1. Prepare the pie crust.

  2. Fill the crust with sliced green apples.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake the pie until the crust is golden brown.

  2. Remove the upper crust carefully.

  3. Mash the apples gently with a spoon.

  4. Season the mashed apples with sugar and cinnamon to taste.

  5. Replace the upper crust on the pie.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Cinnamon + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Green apples
Form the main filling, providing tartness, moisture and bulk for the pie.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the green apples.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that complements the cooked apples.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dish.
Pie crust
Holds the apple filling in shape and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Remove the upper crust carefully. Once baked, pastry becomes brittle and can tear or crack easily, so lifting it gently keeps it intact for replacing on the pie.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, 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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