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Apple Pie and Made Cream or Custard

A baked apple pie with a double crust and apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Pie and Made Cream or Custard

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 425°F (220°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, and salt.

  3. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Stir in ice water, a tablespoon at a time, until dough forms a ball.

  5. Divide dough in half and refrigerate.

Fill and assemble

  1. Roll out one half of the dough on a floured surface to fit a pie pan.

  2. In another bowl, combine sliced apples, sugar, cinnamon, flour, and lemon juice.

  3. Pour apple mixture into the pie crust.

  4. Roll out the second half of the dough and place over the filling.

  5. Seal and cut slits in the top crust.

  6. Brush with beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Bake for 15 minutes.

  2. Reduce temperature to 350°F (175°C).

  3. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until apples are soft.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and thickens the apple filling.
Unsalted butter
Cold pieces create flaky layers as they melt and steam during baking.
Apples
Supply the bulk of the filling, softening as they bake into a tender filling.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling's juices thicken and caramelize.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavor and balances the sweetness.
Egg
Brushed on as an egg wash, it promotes golden browning of the top crust.

The step that matters

Keep the butter cold and the water ice-cold. Cold butter pieces stay separate in the dough and melt during baking, creating flaky layers. If the butter warms and blends in, the crust turns tough and dense instead of flaky.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, cinnamon, lemon, egg. 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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