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Dessert

Pan Dowdy

A baked apple dish with a crust on top, made with apples, brown sugar, molasses, spices, flour, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Pan Dowdy

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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter a three-quart earthen pan.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill the pan with the prepared apples and stir in the brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, clove, allspice, and mace.

  2. Cover the mixture with crust and bake until golden brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Once baked, remove the crust, break it into small pieces, and mix it with the hot baked apples.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool before serving.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main filling, moisture, and tart flavor as they soften during baking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the filling turn syrupy and rich.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and a robust flavor to the filling.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure of the crust that covers and holds the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the crust.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to help the crust rise and lighten.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Gingerfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, cinnamon, clove, allspice, apple, butter. 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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