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Dessert

Apple and Raisin Pie

A baked pie filled with sweetened apple sauce, cinnamon, boiled raisins, and egg yolks, topped with a meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Apple and Raisin Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mix the apple sauce, cinnamon, boiled raisins, and egg yolks together.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Top and bake

  1. Make a meringue by beating the egg whites with a little sugar until stiff peaks form.

  2. Spread the meringue in a fancy shape over the pie.

  3. Bake in the oven until the meringue is hardened.

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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,920 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + raisintop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apple sauce
Provides the moist, tart body of the filling and its main flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set during baking, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue, they form a light foam that bakes into a dry, crisp topping.
Seedless raisins
Add chewy sweetness and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Under-beaten whites collapse and weep, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy. Stiff, glossy peaks hold their shape and bake into a stable meringue.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, cinnamon, raisin, egg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, cinnamon, raisin, 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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