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 ↓
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
Prepare the apples as for a pudding and slice them into a dish.
Sprinkle the sugar and flavoring over the apples, distributing evenly.
Cover the apples with the pastry, ensuring the edges are pressed down firmly.
Bake and serve
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes until firm.
Serve hot or cold, dusted with flavored sugar.
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.
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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
- Apples
- Provide the bulk and juices of the filling, softening as they bake.
- Pastry
- Forms a crust that encloses the fruit and browns in the oven.
- Moist sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps draw out juices that form a syrup with the apples.
- Flavoring
- Adds warm aroma that complements the apples.
The step that matters
Pressing the pastry edges firmly. A tight seal keeps the juices from escaping during baking, so the filling stays moist and the crust cooks evenly around the edges.
Swap the lemon
The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Pearfits better
- Quincefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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