Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Baked Apples
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare
Wash and core the sour apples.
Place them in an earthen or granite dish and fill the center of each apple with sugar.
Pour 1 tablespoon of water around each apple (do not pour over the apples).
Bake and serve
Bake until tender.
Remove the apples to the serving dish.
Strain the juice, add ⅓ cup of sugar, and cook for 5 minutes.
Pour the syrup over the apples, let cool, and serve with cream.
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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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Sour apples
- Provide the main body and tart flavor that the sugar balances during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and, once dissolved in the juice, forms the syrup that glazes them.
The step that matters
Pour the water around the apples, not over them. Water poured around the fruit creates steam and a pool of juice in the dish, while water poured over the apples can wash off the sugar in their centers and make the syrup too thin.
“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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