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Dessert

Creamed Sweet Apple Pie

A pie made with sweet apples stewed in water and sugar, topped with whipped cream and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Creamed Sweet Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare, core, and quarter the apples.

  2. Place them in a pudding dish with a few spoonfuls of water to prevent burning, cover, and cook until tender but not broken.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of sugar for each cup of apples and let them cool in the syrup.

  4. Cut the apples into thin slices or tiny dice.

Make the pie

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and line a pie plate, dusting with flour.

  2. Cover with another layer of pastry and bake until brown.

  3. When ready to serve, open the crusts, spread the lower one with the stewed apples, cover with whipped cream, and place the top crust on.

  4. Sprinkle the top crust with powdered sugar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Campfield pound sweets or other sweet apples
Provide the main filling, becoming tender and sweet when stewed with sugar.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that encloses the apple filling and browns in the oven.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a soft, creamy layer between the apples and the top crust.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and syrup they cool in, balancing their tartness.

The step that matters

Stewing the apples until tender but not broken. Cooking gently with a little water and then cooling in the syrup keeps the slices intact and prevents scorching, while overcooking turns them to mush and makes the pie soggy.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, cream. 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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