Name: Apple Pie
Ingredients: 8 russet apples, peeled, cored, and quartered; ½ cup moist sugar; Grated lemon peel or a few drops of lemon essence; A little quince or quince jam; Pie crust of your choice

Why it works: Apple and quince work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

8 russet apples, peeled, cored, and quartered
½ cup moist sugar
Grated lemon peel or a few drops of lemon essence
A little quince or quince jam
Pie crust of your choice

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Pack the quartered apples tightly in a pie dish.

Assemble and bake

Add the sugar, lemon peel or essence, and quince or quince jam.
Cover with your chosen pie crust.
Bake for 1.5 hours.

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 + quincetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together506 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + quincetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together336 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Russet apples: Provide the bulk and fruit filling that cooks down into the pie's soft interior.
Moist sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps draw juices from the apples as they cook.
Quince or quince jam: Adds extra pectin and a distinctive aromatic, tart flavour to the filling.