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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie made with apples, cloves, sugar, lemon peel, optional quince jam, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and quince match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 164 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 375°F (190°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

  2. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  3. Place the apples in a pie dish and add the cloves.

  4. In a mortar, rub together the lemon peel and sugar.

  5. If desired, mix in some quince jam.

Bake

  1. Cover the apples with the puff pastry.

  2. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until golden brown.

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. Clove + quincetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + quincetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together336 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + quincetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,444 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Apples
Provide the bulk and tart flavour that holds the filling together as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and draws moisture out of the apples to form a syrup.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that browns in the oven and encloses the filling.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oils that lift the sweetness of the apples and sugar.

The step that matters

Covering the apples with puff pastry. Apples release juice as they bake, so the pastry must seal well and the oven must be fully preheated. Otherwise the crust can turn soggy underneath while the filling stays watery.

Swap the quince

The recipe marks quince as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, clove, sugar):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Vanillafits about as well
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, clove, sugar. 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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