Skip to main content
Dessert

Coddled Sweet Apples

Coddled sweet apples simmered in molasses, grape juice, raisins, cinnamon, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Coddled Sweet Apples

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare the apples, leaving the stems on.

  2. Steam the apples until tender.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine molasses and water to make a syrup.

  2. Add grape juice or sour jelly, raisins, cinnamon, and cloves to the syrup.

  3. Simmer slowly until the apples are brown and clear.

Finish and store

  1. Remove the apples to a crock.

  2. Boil the syrup down until just enough to cover the apples.

  3. Cover the crock closely until 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Apple + grapetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  5. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet apples
Form the main body of the dish, softening when steamed and then simmered in the syrup.
Molasses
Provides dark color and deep, sweet flavor to the syrup.
Raisins
Add sweetness and chewy texture as they plump in the syrup.
Grape juice or sour jelly
Adds acidity and fruity tang that balances the sweetness of the molasses.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until the apples are brown and clear. Gentle heat lets the sugars in the syrup slowly caramelize and the apples absorb flavor without breaking apart. Boiling hard can split the fruit and make the syrup cloudy or bitter.

Swap the grape

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Quincefits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, molasses, raisin, cinnamon, clove. 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.

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipes