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Apples in Syrup

Apples cooked in a thin sugar and water syrup with spices and lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apples in Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water to make a thin syrup.

  2. Add spices or lemon peel to the syrup for flavor.

Cook and cool the apples

  1. Pare the small apples, keeping them whole.

  2. Boil the apples in the syrup until tender, being careful not to let them break.

  3. Once cooked, set the apples and syrup aside in a deep dish to cool.

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 + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the apples hold a glossy, tender texture as they cook.
Small-sized apples
Form the main body of the dish, softening as they simmer in the syrup.
Water
Dissolves the sugar to make a thin syrup that cooks the apples gently.

The step that matters

Boil the apples in the syrup until tender. Apples keep their shape best when simmered gently; a hard boil can break the flesh and leave them mushy. Testing for tenderness with a knife helps avoid overcooking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, apple. 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.

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