Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
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 spiced water
Combine cloves, cinnamon, and water in a saucepan and boil for a few minutes.
Strain and cool the liquid.
Assemble the pie
Peel and quarter the apples, removing the cores, then arrange them evenly in a pie dish.
Sprinkle sugar and grated lemon rind over the apples.
Add the cooled spiced water.
Roll out puff pastry and place it around the rim of the dish, covering the apples with more pastry.
Bake and finish
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.
When the apples soften, squeeze in lemon juice or add barberries or quince if desired.
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.
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Apple + quincetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together506 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
-
Clove + quincetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together164 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Cinnamon + quincetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together199 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the bulk of the filling, softening during baking to become tender and juicy.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps draw out juices that form the filling syrup.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a flaky, crisp, browned crust that encloses the filling.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the apples.
The step that matters
Adding the cooled spiced water. The liquid must be cooled before it goes in, so that warm liquid does not start melting the puff pastry's butter layers before baking, which would weaken the flaky rise.
Swap the quince
The recipe marks quince as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, cinnamon, apple, sugar, lemon):
- Orangefits about as well
- Quincethe original
- Vanillafits about as well
- Pearfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against clove, cinnamon, apple, sugar, lemon. 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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