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Dessert

Apple Cobbler

A baked dessert of stewed apples with sugar, spices, butter, flour, and lemon, topped with pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Cobbler

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Mix the stewed apples, sugar, cinnamon, mixed spices, melted butter, flour, and lemon juice together well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pan lined with pastry.

Bake

  1. Cover with pie crust dough, creating a scalloped edge.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed tart apples
Form the main filling, providing bulk and tart flavor.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Flour
Thickens the juices from the apples so the filling holds together.
Melted butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smoother mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the apples.

The step that matters

Covering with the crust and baking until golden. Sealing the filling under dough lets steam build and cook the apples through, while the oven's heat browns the crust. Baking until golden, rather than for a fixed time alone, shows the crust has browned and the filling has heated fully.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, clove, allspice, butter, flour. 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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