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Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie made with tart apples, sugar, flour, butter, and nutmeg or cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Peel, core, and slice enough tart apples for a pie.

  2. In a bowl, mix 1 cup of sugar with 1 tablespoon of flour.

  3. Pour the sugar mixture over the apples.

Assemble and bake

  1. Sprinkle a few bits of butter and a little grated nutmeg or cinnamon over the apples.

  2. Bake with both an upper and lower crust.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Tart apples
Provide the main filling, with a tart flavor that balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and draws moisture from the apples to form a syrup.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the apples so the filling sets rather than running.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the filling as it melts over the apples.

The step that matters

Coating the apples with the sugar and flour mixture. Flour must be evenly mixed through the sugar before pouring, so it thickens the juices throughout rather than leaving lumps or pockets that stay runny or pasty after baking.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, nutmeg. 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.

More apple pie recipes

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