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 ↓
Apple Tart
Ingredients
Directions
Pare, core, and cut the apples into small pieces.
Line a dish with pastry.
Sprinkle a layer of apples with cloves, cinnamon, mace, sugar, nutmeg, and finely chopped lemon peel.
Pour in ½ cup of lemon juice and water.
Cover with pastry and bake for 1 hour.
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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Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,917 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,598 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon):
- Cardamomfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Gingerfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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