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Dessert

Suffolk Apple Pie

A pie made with apples, sugar, butter, and wine, baked in a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,207 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Suffolk 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 the pie

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cover a pie plate with pastry.

  3. Pare and core the apples, then cut them in half.

  4. Place the apple halves on the pastry.

Add the filling

  1. On each apple half, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and a piece of butter.

  2. Pour wine over the apples.

Bake

  1. Bake until the apples are tender.

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. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Apple and sugar 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

Apples
Form the soft filling, and their juices and sugars build the body and sweetness of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps draw out juices that caramelize slightly during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the apples as it melts.
Pastry
Forms the crust that holds the filling and bakes into a sturdy base.

The step that matters

Bake until the apples are tender. Apples must soften fully for the flesh to become tender. Heat breaks down the cell walls and pectin in the fruit, so underbaked apples stay firm and hard to cut.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Applethe original
  3. Grapefits about as well
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, wine. 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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