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Dessert

Deep Apple Pie

A baked apple pie with suet crust, butter, flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Deep Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Peel and slice enough sour juicy apples to fill a quart pudding dish.

  3. Cut the butter into small pieces and sprinkle the flour over it.

  4. Butter the pudding dish and line the sides with suet crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Layer the apples in the dish, sprinkling sugar, cinnamon or nutmeg, and bits of butter over each layer.

  2. Pour in the cold water carefully.

  3. Cover with the suet crust and bake for one hour.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Sour juicy apples
Provide the bulk and tart flavour that the sugar and spice balance.
Suet crust
Forms a rich, sturdy case that lines and covers the apples while they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture as it melts over the apple layers.
Flour
Lightly thickens the juices released by the apples as they cook.

The step that matters

Pour in the cold water carefully. Cold water added to the dish before baking helps create steam and keeps the juices from boiling away too quickly, while pouring gently avoids disturbing the layered apples and crust lining.

Swap the apple

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

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

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