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Dessert

Apple Torte Pie

A pie with a crumbly rye bread base and sliced apples seasoned with sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, raisins, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Apple Torte 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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grate the stale rye bread into crumbs and mix with sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel.

  3. Butter a deep pie plate and line it with the bread crumbs.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the sliced apples with sugar, cinnamon, raisins or currants, and chopped citron.

  2. Place the apple mixture on top of the bread crumbs, adding more sugar if desired. Cover with the remaining bread crumbs, dot with butter, and sprinkle with wine.

  3. Bake for about 20 minutes.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Stale rye bread crumbs
Form the base and top layers that soak up apple juices and wine while holding structure.
Tart apples
Provide the fruit filling, with tartness that balances the sugar and cinnamon.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the top layer brown and taste toasted.
Wine
Adds moisture and a mild acidic flavor that penetrates the bread crumb layers.
Raisins or currants
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture within the apple filling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rye, bread, sugar, cinnamon, apple, raisin, butter. 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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