Skip to main content
Baking

Cooked Green Apple Pie

A pie made with peeled apples cooked with water, sugar, lemon, and spices, then baked with a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Cooked Green Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel and core the apples, removing any defective or rotten parts.

  2. Place the apples in a dish, add a little water, and cook on the stove until soft.

  3. Sweeten the apples to taste and cook a little longer, stirring well, then let cool.

  4. Once cool, flavor with lemon juice, cinnamon, or nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie tin with pie dough, fill with the apple mixture, and cover with a top crust.

  2. Cut several slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the crust is light brown.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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 main body and flavor of the filling as they soften when cooked.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the green apples.
Pie dough
Forms the crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds brightness and acidity that sharpens the apple flavor.

The step that matters

Cutting slits in the top crust. Steam from the cooking apples builds pressure under a sealed crust. Slits let it escape, so the crust does not puff or split and the filling does not become watery.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. 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.

You might also like

Delicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipesCitron CakeCitron Cake68 recipesScotch CakeScotch Cake63 recipes