Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓
Apple-Pie
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare, quarter, and core the apples.
Place them in a dish with sugar, lemon peel, cloves, cinnamon, and a little water.
If apples are not juicy, add a little lemon juice or wine before covering.
Cover with pie crust.
Bake
Bake until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly.
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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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,774 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,150 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the main filling, becoming tender and releasing juice as they cook.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juice from the apples.
- Pie crust
- Encloses the filling and browns in the oven to form the golden top.
- Cinnamon
- Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the apples.
The step that matters
Add lemon juice or wine if apples are not juicy. Apples vary in juiciness, and a dry filling can bake dense and stick to the dish. A little acid or liquid helps create enough syrup to bubble and stay moist.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon):
- Vanillafits better
- Quincefits better
- Pearfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, 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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