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Dessert

Baked Apples

A dish of apples baked with sugar and water, then chilled and served with the resulting juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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

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

  1. Cut out the blossom end of the apples and remove the stems.

  2. Wash the apples and pack them in a pudding dish, placing a little sugar on top of each apple.

  3. Pour 1 cup of water into the bottom of the dish.

Steam

  1. Cover the dish with another dish or pan and place it in a 350°F (175°C) oven to steam until tender.

  2. Pour the liquid over the apples while hot.

  3. Repeat pouring as the apples cool.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill the apples in the refrigerator for several hours before serving.

  2. Transfer the apples to a glass dish.

  3. Pour the juice over them again.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Apples
Softens as they steam, becoming tender while holding their shape.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the juices to form a syrup.

The step that matters

Steaming until tender. The covered dish traps steam so heat reaches the centre of each apple evenly. Too little time leaves the flesh firm, while too much time makes the apples collapse and turn mushy.

“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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