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Dessert

A "dandy" Apple Pie

A pie with a butter‑and‑lard crust filled with sliced tart apples, spiced, topped with a crust, and sweetened with a syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

A "dandy" Apple Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crust

  1. Combine flour, salt, lard, and butter.

  2. Chop mixture until it resembles small peas.

  3. Add ice water without mixing.

  4. Turn mixture onto a floured surface and roll it out, folding it over until smooth.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie tin with the crust and fill it with sliced apples and spices. Do not add sugar.

  2. Cover with a top crust, making a slit in it.

  3. Bake the pie.

Make the syrup and serve

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, and butter. Boil for 15 minutes or until thickened.

  2. Pour the syrup through the slit in the pie before serving to sweeten it without making the crust soggy.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten-based structure of the crust that holds the pastry together.
Lard
Creates a tender, flaky texture by keeping fat pockets separate in the dough.
Butter
Adds flavor and richness to the crust and helps it brown.
Ice water
Hydrates the flour while keeping fat cold, so the crust stays tender and flaky.
Tart apples
Provide the main filling, with their acidity balancing the sweetness of the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup that is poured into the baked pie, adding sweetness and body.

The step that matters

Add the ice water without mixing. Cold water keeps the fat in small solid pieces, which create flaky layers when baked. Overmixing develops gluten and makes the crust tough.

Swap the apple

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

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

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