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Dessert

Mock Apple Pie

A pie made from crushed soda crackers, egg, sugar, water, and lemon zest, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. 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 soda crackers into small pieces.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the crushed crackers, egg, sugar, water, lemon juice, and lemon rind until well combined.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set and lightly browned.

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

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

Soda crackers
Crushed crackers thicken the filling and give it body, standing in for apples.
Egg
Sets during baking, helping bind the filling and firm it into a sliceable pie.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and mimics the tartness of apples.
Lemon rind
Contributes aromatic oils that add fresh lemon fragrance to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until set and lightly browned. Egg proteins coagulate as the filling heats, so pulling the pie too early leaves it runny, while overbaking can make it dry and tough. Let it cool so the filling firms further before slicing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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