Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Apple Pie
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the filling
Mix the mashed apples with the creamed butter.
Add the beaten eggs, sugar, lemon juice, and grated rind; combine well.
Bake
Pour the mixture into a puff pastry-lined dish without an upper crust.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until set and golden.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the bulk and fruity flavour of the filling.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, tender texture.
- Eggs
- Set the filling as they cook and help bind it together.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown as it bakes.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet apple flavour.
The step that matters
Bake until set and golden. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the filling needs to be baked until firm. Pulling it out too early leaves it runny, while over-baking can make it dry and curdled.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, egg, sugar, lemon):
- Vanillafits better
- Raspberryfits better
- Orangefits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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