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Dessert

Dried Apple Pie

A pie made with soaked dried apples, syrup, brown sugar, buttermilk, butter, eggs, baking soda, spices, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dried Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Soak the dried apples overnight in cold water.

  2. Drain and chop the apples finely in the morning.

  3. Stew the chopped apples in the syrup until clear.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, buttermilk, butter, eggs, baking soda, mixed spices, and grated nutmeg until stiff.

  2. Fold in the stewed apples and any optional fruit or raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 300°F (150°C) until set.

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. Syrup + buttermilktop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried apples
Provide the main bulk and fruit flavour, softening into the filling as they stew.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture while softening and clearing the chopped apples.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to lift the batter and adds a tangy note.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the filling structure and holding it together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to release gas, helping the mixture rise.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs coagulate as they heat, which firms the filling. Underbaking leaves it loose and wet in the centre, while overbaking can make the eggs curdle and the texture grainy.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, syrup, sugar, buttermilk, butter, egg, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, syrup, sugar, buttermilk, butter, egg, nutmeg. 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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