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Dessert

Deep Apple Pie

A pie made by stewing tart apples and topping with biscuit dough, served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Deep Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare and quarter enough tart apples to fill a baking dish.

  2. Sweeten the apples to taste.

Top with biscuit dough

  1. Make a soft biscuit dough that can be handled.

  2. Pat the dough into shape and spread it on top of the apples.

Cook and serve

  1. Stew until the apples are tender and the dough is cooked through by the steam.

  2. Ensure the apples do not scorch while cooking.

  3. Serve with cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Biscuit + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,874 recipes

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

  4. Apple + biscuittop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together260 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Tart apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns tender as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Biscuit dough
Forms a soft topping that cooks through from the steam rising from the apples.

The step that matters

Keep the apples from scorching. Apples held in a dish over heat can stick and burn on the bottom before they become tender. Sugar in the fruit caramelises and darkens quickly, so the heat must stay gentle and the dish watched closely while the dough steams above.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, biscuit, cream):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, biscuit, cream. 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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