Name: Apple Sauce
Ingredients: 1 quart of pared, sliced, and cored apples; 1 cup of white sugar; 1 piece of sweet butter (about 1 tablespoon); water (enough to form a syrup)

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Apple Sauce

Ingredients

1 quart of pared, sliced, and cored apples
1 cup of white sugar
1 piece of sweet butter (about 1 tablespoon)
water (enough to form a syrup)

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Place the apples in a baking tin.

Bake

Sprinkle the sugar over the apples.
Add the butter on top of the apples.
Pour in enough water to create a syrup.
Bake until warm and 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.

Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + syruptop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together742 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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: Provide the bulk of the sauce, softening into a tender, spoonable texture as they bake.
White sugar: Adds sweetness and helps form the syrup that cooks the apples.
Sweet butter: Adds fat and richness, rounding out the flavour of the apples.