Name: Old-fashioned Apple Pie
Ingredients: 6 apples; ½ cup sugar; 1 lemon (rind and juice); 6 cloves; 1 walnut-sized piece of butter; ⅓ cup port wine; pie crust

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Old-fashioned Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

Core and quarter the apples.
Boil the cores and parings in sugar and water.
Strain the liquid.
Add more sugar.

Flavor the fruit

Grate the lemon rind over the apples.
Squeeze the juice into the syrup.
Stick the cloves into the fruit.
Add the butter and port wine.

Bake

Bake in a 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.

Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,592 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + walnuttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,149 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Apple + port winetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together75 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

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 structure of the filling as they soften while baking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the syrup and fruit develop flavor and color.
Lemon: Adds acidity and aroma from the rind and juice, balancing the sweetness.
Butter: Adds richness and fat to the filling.
Port wine: Adds depth and fruity sweetness to the filling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, walnut, butter, port wine):

Figfits better
Pearfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, walnut, butter, port wine. 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.