Name: Spiced Apple Pie
Ingredients: 4 good sized apples; 2-3 cups raisins; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1-2 teaspoons cloves; a little nutmeg; 1 tablespoon butter (size of walnut); 1-2 cups sugar

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Apple 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Peel and slice the apples.

Make the filling

In a bowl, combine the apples, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, butter, and sugar. Mix well until the apples are coated.

Assemble and bake

Pour the mixture into a pie crust and cover with another crust.
Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,598 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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 tender fruit that softens and fills the pie.
Raisins: Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Sugar: Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juices that form a syrup.
Butter: Adds richness and moisture to the filling.
Cinnamon: Contributes warm aroma that flavours the apples.

Swap the walnut

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

Almondfits better
Chestnutfits better
Pistachiofits about as well
Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, raisin, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, butter, sugar. 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.