Name: Apple or Peach Custard Pie
Ingredients: 1 pie crust; 2-3 cups sugar; 2 tablespoons flour; 2 apples or peaches, sliced; 2 tablespoons water

Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Apple or Peach Custard 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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Line a pie pan with the pie crust.
In a bowl, mix 2-3 cups of sugar with 2 tablespoons of flour.
Slice the apples or peaches and place them in the pie crust.
Sprinkle a little sugar on top of the fruit.
Add 2 tablespoons of water.

Bake

Bake for 45 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.

Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Flour + appletop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,140 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and apple 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

Pie crust: Holds the fruit and filling in a shaped case while baking.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps draw out juices from the fruit.
Flour: Mixed with the sugar to help thicken the fruit juices as the pie bakes.
Apples or peaches: Provide the main filling, adding fruit flavour, moisture and natural acidity.