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Dessert

Minced Apple Pie

A pie filled with chopped apples, sugar, spices, and topped with a butter and egg glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Minced Apple Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the crust

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

  2. Line a pie pan with flaky pastry.

  3. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of flour in the bottom of the pan and rub it in gently.

Fill and bake

  1. Mix the chopped apples, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon together and place in the pastry shell.

  2. Dot the apple mixture with butter.

  3. Bake until the apples are tender.

  4. Remove from the oven and sprinkle chopped pecans over the top.

Make and add the egg topping

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg white and yolk separately.

  2. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar to the egg white and beat until combined.

  3. Beat the egg yolk lightly and add it to the egg white mixture along with vanilla and milk.

  4. Spread the egg mixture over the top of the pie and bake for about 15 minutes.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Cinnamon + pecanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the main filling and soft, tender body once baked.
Egg
Sets the topping into a light layer as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour into the filling.
Flour
Absorbs juices from the apples so the filling thickens slightly.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the filling caramelise.

The step that matters

Baking the apples until tender before adding the topping. Apples must soften fully before the egg topping goes on, because the topping bakes for only about 15 minutes and will not cook the fruit through.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, butter, flour, pecans, egg. 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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