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Fruit Soups

A simple apple soup made with apples, water, cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Fruit Soups

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the apples

  1. Cook the apples in a little water until soft and mushy.

  2. Add water, cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir well and heat until slightly thickened.

  2. Serve warm or cold.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

Apples
Break down into a soft, mushy body that gives the soup its texture and natural sweetness.
Cornstarch
Swells when heated and thickens the liquid into a smooth, lightly thick soup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the apples.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the soup.

The step that matters

Heat until slightly thickened. Cornstarch thickens as its starch granules swell with heat, and the soup keeps thickening as it cools. Stopping at slightly thickened avoids a gluey result, while heating long enough ensures the starch is fully activated and the soup does not taste raw or powdery.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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