Name: New England Apple Pie
Ingredients: 1 pie crust (plain or puff paste); 4 cups tart apples, pared, cored, and sliced; 1 cup sugar; 1 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg

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 ↓

New England Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

1 pie crust (plain or puff paste)
4 cups tart apples, pared, cored, and sliced
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon or nutmeg

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Place the pie crust in a deep pie dish.

Assemble and bake

Fill the dish with sliced apples.
Sprinkle sugar and cinnamon or nutmeg over the apples.
Cover with another crust.
Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

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.

Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

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

Tart apples: Provide the main filling, with tartness that balances the sweet sugar.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps draw moisture from the apples to form syrup.
Pie crust: Forms the structure that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Cinnamon or nutmeg: Adds warm aromatic flavour that complements the cooked apples.