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 ↓
Canned Apples
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Peel and core the apples.
Cut the apples into quarters if small or eighths if large.
Place the apples in a steamer over boiling water.
Steam the apples until they can be pierced with a straw.
Make the syrup and stew
Prepare the syrup by mixing 1 teacup of sugar with 3 teacups of water.
Gently drop the apple pieces into the syrup.
Stew the apple pieces for 10 minutes, ensuring they do not break.
Can and store
Wrap the cans in a wet towel.
Fill the cans with boiling fruit and syrup as quickly as possible.
Tightly fasten the covers.
When the cans are cold, tighten the covers again if possible.
Wrap the cans in paper.
Store the cans in a cool cellar.
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
- Apples
- Provide the fruit that softens during steaming and stewing and becomes the main body of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the syrup and adds body, balancing the tartness of the apples.
The step that matters
Fill the cans with boiling fruit and syrup as quickly as possible.. Hot contents and a quick fill help drive air out and create a vacuum seal as the cans cool, which is what keeps the fruit preserved. Delay lets the contents cool and seal poorly.
“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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