Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Saxony Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the crust
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a deep dish with puff pastry and bake for 10 minutes.
Fill and bake
Boil the apples in 2 cups of water until tender.
Fill the baked pastry with the boiled apples, sprinkle with cinnamon, sugar, and bits of butter.
Beat the egg with 1 ounce of sugar and pour it over the apples.
Top with chopped almonds and bake until done.
Serve cold.
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 + almondtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together3,514 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
-
Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cinnamon and sugar 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
- Harvest apples
- Provide the main filling, softened by boiling until tender.
- Puff pastry
- Forms the crisp, flaky base that holds the filling.
- Egg
- Beaten with sugar and poured over the apples to set into a custard-like layer.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, helping the pastry and filling brown and taste rich.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and custard and aids browning in the oven.
The step that matters
Pouring the egg mixture over the apples. The egg needs to be set but not overbaked; the custard layer should be cooked through without turning rubbery or curdled. Watch the bake until the top is set and lightly golden.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, sugar, butter, egg, almond):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, sugar, butter, egg, almond. 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.
More apple pie recipes
You might also like
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipes
Cinnamon Rolls71 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.