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Dessert

Centennial Apple Pie

A baked apple pie with a puff pastry crust and a sweetened apple filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Centennial Apple Pie

Ingredients

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 the filling

  1. Peel and core the apples, then chop them into small pieces.

  2. In a pot, combine apples, water, cinnamon, and lemon rind; stew over low heat until soft.

  3. Sweeten the mixture with sugar and pass it through a fine sieve.

Finish and bake

  1. Add egg yolks, egg white, butter, nutmeg, lemon peel, and lemon juice; mix well.

  2. Line a pie dish with puff pastry, fill with the apple mixture, and bake at 350°F (175°C) 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its tender, fruity body once stewed.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set to a smooth, custard-like texture.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps the filling set and hold its structure as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier mouthfeel in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky, layered crust that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Passing the stewed apples through a fine sieve. Sieving breaks down the cooked apple into a smooth purée, so the filling stays silky rather than lumpy or fibrous. Stewing the apples until fully soft first makes this straining easier and more even.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, lemon, sugar, egg, butter, 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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