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Scotch Baked Apples

A baked apple dish with sugar, butter, candied lemon peel, sweetened water, and browned bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Scotch Baked Apples

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel the apples and remove the cores.

  2. Fill the cores with sugar, butter, and candied lemon peel.

  3. Brush the apples with sweetened water.

  4. Sprinkle the apples with browned bread crumbs.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until 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.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the main body, softening as they bake into a tender, spoonable fruit.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling caramelise slightly in the cored centre.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, melting into the filling as it bakes.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, browned topping that contrasts with the soft fruit.
Candied lemon peel
Adds concentrated citrus aroma and a touch of bright flavour to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until tender. Apples must cook through so the flesh softens evenly; underbaked fruit stays firm and starchy, while the crumbs need enough heat to brown properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, butter, bread. 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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