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Dessert

Fruit Pie

A layered pie of sour apples and raisins baked with sugar, butter, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Prepare a two-quart tin basin for the pie.

  3. Make a pie crust and place a layer in the bottom of the basin.

Layer and bake

  1. Add a two-inch thick layer of chopped sour apples.

  2. Add a layer of chopped raisins and sprinkle sugar, butter pieces, and spices on top.

  3. Repeat layering until the basin is full, finishing with a crust on top.

  4. Bake slowly for two hours.

Serve

  1. Once done, turn the pie bottom side up on a plate and sprinkle fine sugar over it before serving.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and tartness that balances the sweetness.
Raisins
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture within the layers.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juices as the pie bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries the spice flavour through the filling.
Pie crust
Forms the enclosing structure that holds the layered filling together.

The step that matters

Bake slowly for two hours. Low, slow heat lets the thick apple layers soften through to the centre without the crust over-browning or burning. Rushing with higher heat risks a raw, watery centre.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, sugar, butter, clove, nutmeg):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, sugar, butter, clove, nutmeg. 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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