Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Pie

Apple pie made with a lard or butter crust and sliced apples, sweetened with sugar and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Walnut and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,230 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Sift the flour and rub in the lard or butter.

  2. Add cold water and salt, stirring quickly.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pie crust with the sliced apples.

  2. Mix sugar, butter, flour, and nutmeg.

  3. Sprinkle the mixture over the apples.

  4. Add 2-3 tablespoons of water based on apple juiciness.

  5. Pinch the edges of the upper crust closed.

  6. Bake immediately.

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. Walnut + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the crust and thickens the filling as it bakes.
Lard
Shortens the dough, keeping the crust tender and flaky by coating flour particles.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the crust and the sugar topping.
Apples
Provide the main filling, with their juice moistening the sugar and spices.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps draw out juice from the apples.

The step that matters

Add cold water and salt, stirring quickly. Cold water and quick stirring keep the fat in solid pieces and limit gluten development, so the crust stays tender and flaky rather than tough.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, walnut, 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

Green 20Dried 19English 13Mock 13German 10Lemon 10 See all 369 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes