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Dessert

Mock Apple Pie

A sweet pie made with crushed Boston crackers, water, sugar, lemon juice, pulp, zest, nutmeg, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock 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

  1. Crush the Boston cracker with a rolling pin and place it in a bowl.

  2. Pour in the cold water and add the sugar, lemon juice and pulp, lemon zest, and nutmeg.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie plate with half of the puff pastry.

  2. Pour the mixture into the lined pie plate and cover with the remaining pastry.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Boston cracker
Crushed crackers soak up the liquid and form the bulk and body of the filling.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps thicken the filling as it bakes.
Lemon juice and pulp
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, golden crust that encloses the filling.

The step that matters

Pouring in the cold water with the crushed cracker. The cracker must have time to soften and absorb the liquid so the filling sets evenly rather than staying watery or lumpy in the oven.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon. 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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