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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie filled with cooked tart apples, butter, egg white, and nutmeg or lemon, baked in a rich crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Quarter the tart apples and cook them in a small amount of water with the skin and seeds on.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sifter.

  3. Let the sifted mixture cool.

  4. Sweeten the apple mixture to taste.

  5. Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form.

  6. Add the butter.

  7. Flavor the mixture with nutmeg or lemon.

Assemble

  1. Pour the mixture into a pre-baked rich pie crust.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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 bulk of the filling and its tart flavor once cooked and sifted.
Egg white
Beaten to stiff peaks, it lightens the filling and adds a airy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the filling.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until stiff peaks form. Under-beaten whites stay loose and won't lighten the filling; over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy and lose their ability to blend smoothly.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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.

More apple pie recipes

Green 20Dried 19English 13Mock 13German 10Lemon 10 See all 369 →

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